Aug. 27, 1973 we said goodbye to my beautiful sister Linda
Mama and Linda age 5 at my first home in Falfurrias, Texas January 1948.
_____ 3 weeks later we came to Oregon!
This was the day that destroyed so many lives.
Odd... because I remember it being a different day the 23 or 24th.. I'm getting old.
But she wasn't old or sick. She was beautiful and brilliant and good! 29 years old with 3 children to support alone. She was working and studying to be an xray tech at Oregon institute of technology in Klamath falls.
She drove over that day to shop for school, visit at our mothers home.
I was at the doctor's office with my sweet baby girl, for a check up for her first day of school, thinking how exciting it was!
I remember standing at the counter writing a check when suddenly a horrible wave of dizziness and fear gripped me.. I ripped the check.
We drove home, it was late afternoon and before long the phone rang. My poor mother's voice was hysterical as she told me that the sick Sonofabitch my sister divorced and tried to escape had just slaughtered her with 3 blasts with a 12 guage shotgun in front of our mother and her 12 year old son..
She kept screaming, " Her insides are everywhere"
I fell to my knees. This was my best friend, my only sibling. She was like a mother who cared for me when our mom was too Ill. She was my inspiration!
The details are gut wrenching. The loss to all of us was beyond explanation.
Now I had 4 very confused little kids to get to school. It was and still is so impossible for them!!
I was blamed by everyone for not being there to stop it.
I've never been able to say goodbye to anyone I loved except Bugs. It's horrible!
My mother was never the same. She tried so hard! I couldn't have survived it like she did.
Those 3 children. Lost. Just lost. I never hear from them. They aren't capable of loving after that.
The trial was horrible. The letters to the editor from people who knew none of us, was horrible. It destroyed my mother.
50 years! It hurts just as much today! For 40 years I prayed and kept the faith and tried to take care of her kids. I couldn't do it all.
I'm so sorry!
Please forgive me.
I want no part of a deity who allowed one sick bastard to destroy all of us.. we were good women who NEVER HARMED anyone! Children! 3 babies!
Any God who would allow this is a taskmaster tyrant!
8th grade graduation, Central point Oregon c 1956
Valedictorian!
I was the dumb sister.
The first time I lost my faith was when I lost Linda. 1973
ReplyDeleteOne day, Danny and I had finally had a moment alone after she died and our baby died and that monster father if his attacked my 6 year old niece who just lost her mother! The most evil man I ever met. Soulless. We were surrounded by those kind of men... Dick Randleman, Mitch Milich, Darrell Wells.....
I explained to him.... because I wouldn't Cry because I was holding everything together, trying to work too.... that there's no God, he was right. No one would allow this who has the power to stop it!
I guess it frightened him that I had changed so much in that opinion. I was always the one trying to get him to believe or at least have some spiritual meaning in our lives. He insisted he was agnostic.
Next thing I knew, there was a preacher in the house. A baptist if I recall.
I don't remember a word he said. The usual bullshit I suppose.
But I was touched by Dan's love for me and that he cared enough to notice my pain for a moment.
I probably never told him thank you. That kind deed was wiped out by his anger with the kids.. they were so messed up. Just upside down.
I couldn't fix it. I couldn't help anyone. Shannan was terribly neglected with 3 bigger confused angry kids in the house. I thought I was brave and tough and taking care of everyone. What a fool.
I don't know if I have learned anything in this life.
I am so sorry.
I'm so so sorry!