The Last Word

Everything was happening in such a hurry!  Having just landed from Germany barely 10 days before my wedding, every minute counted.  I needed to . . . choose the flowers, finalize the music, help clean up the family farm (on which I was getting married), attend bridal showers, pick out a cake, get my wisdom teeth pulled . . .

 

So when I landed in Des Moines, I put off seeing my Aunt June (my dad’s sister) and her husband, Kim, because I was going to see them shortly.  I was anxious to see them.  I had stayed at their house the night before I left for Europe two years earlier and I had a lot to share!  June and Kim had been some of my biggest cheerleaders through the years and I did not want a hurried visit.

 I thought I was making every minute count, you see.

 On Thursday night, June 26, 1986, I was introducing my husband-to-be to some dear friends over dinner.  In the midst of the meal, the phone rang at their house and it was for me.  I took the receiver and heard my mom say, “Something has happened at June and Kim’s.  June is hurt.  Your father and I are headed down to Des Moines.  Go ahead and finish your dinner and visit, then come home.  I’ll call as soon as I know anything.”

 I started to ask questions, but Mom cut me off:  “I don’t know anything.  Just enjoy the rest of your visit and then come home.  I love you.”

 It’s been 23 years and my heart is beating fast as I type this.

Twenty-three years ago we drove home and waited by the phone.  Sitting there, I decided to turn the television on and, no joke, when the screen came on, Kim and June’s house was on the screen, and there were police crawling all over it.  Police cars, an ambulance, neighbors . . . it was a scene of chaos.

 Some pretty woman was talking about a 35-year-old woman found stabbed in her home . . . Husband’s whereabouts were unknown . . . Not many details yet . . . “Victim’s identity not being released pending notification of next-of-kin.”  They had just notified me.

 I watched myself slide to the floor and heard a terrible sound come out of my mouth.  My fiancé grabbed hold of me and started to turn off the television, but I would not let him.  It was my only link to information . . . to June.

 A few moments later—or was it a lifetime?—the phone rang and it was my Aunt Julie (my mom’s sister).  “Kirs.  Your mom called.  June is dead.  Your folks are down there trying to figure it out.  Your mom will call as soon as she can.”

 “But what happened?  How can this be?”

 “That’s all I know.  I’ll call if I hear more.”

 I hung up the phone and looked around the living room.  I felt like I had stepped into a Dali painting.  It was all surreal.

 I started flipping channels.  Each station had its own special murder logo: a dagger, dripping with blood; the word MURDER, starting with a light red at the top and ending in deep red at the bottom; a knife with blood dripping off the blade. 

I waited.  Suddenly, those moments I was determined to make count just . . . stopped.

Twenty-three years ago today, my Aunt June was murdered by her husband, Kim.  He stabbed her five times in the heart and then left her on her kitchen floor. Their eight-year-old son found her bleeding to death when he went in to see if dinner was ready yet.  He ran back across the street to a neighbor’s home where his brothers, 11 and 7, were playing and told the neighbor about his mom.

It was a long night waiting to hear from my parents.  A long night to greet them as they finally got home.  A long weekend planning for a funeral—and a wedding.  A long week gathering details and trying to make sense of what could have happened in that house, between those two people. 

 It has been a long 23 years.  My family has never been the same.

We decided to go ahead and have the wedding.  June’s funeral was on Monday, June 30^th, and we were married on Saturday, July 5^th.  Kim’s parents came and brought the boys to the wedding.  We had been family for many years.  We had enjoyed many holidays, celebrations, and dinners together.  This was new territory.  There is really not a how-to book for this sort of thing . . . Emily Post didn’t include this situation in her book.

 

 So we all did the best we could.  We moved through the funeral.  We mourned June.  We welcomed family and friends coming in for the wedding.  We painted farm buildings and fences and each other.  I tried on my dress for the women.  We laid awake at night trying to figure out what we missed, how this happened, what June did not tell us.  CS Lewis said, “No one ever told me grief felt so much life fear.”  True words.  Fear moved into my heart and set up housekeeping.

 Kim was charged with first-degree murder.  He was offered and accepted a plea bargain of second-degree murder and a jail sentence of 50 years (of which he had to serve, and did serve, 10 years).  Custody of the three boys, after much negotiation, went to Kim’s parents, with the boys visiting June’s family—us—on weekends and holidays, etc.  Just like a divorce—the divorce that I wish Kim would have initiated rather than killing June.

 Over the ensuing years, my grandfather grew more and more bitter.  My grandmother entered a sort of . . . la-la land.  She had loved Kim a lot—we all had.  Eventually, they made contact and a kind of détente entered.  I say a “kind of détente” because I think it really was more a giving up for her.  It was too much work to feel all the emotions and live with all the questions.  We could not make sense of it and that is a hard place to live.  Cheap grace seems easier, at least at the time.

 The rest of us struggled in different ways.  My new husband and I went back to Europe.  June’s brothers and sister, and the in-laws, followed the legal process, grieved, raged, and resigned themselves to the reality that there was not going to be any real answers; at least, not answers that would be true enough or comforting enough to fill the void June had left.

 So for 23 years, Kim got the last word.  I hated that.  I hated that when we talked about June (which was sporadic because it was Just. So. Painful.), it always ended with the fact that she was murdered by her husband.  We lost two people we dearly loved.  All that was left were their three boys who were growing into young men and making their own lives, and a tombstone that we could visit. 

 Kim served his time and was released to start his life over.  The boys graduated from high school, college, and one from law school.  My dad’s eyes lost their twinkle and his hair seemed to gray overnight.  My grandpa died about 11 years ago and my grandmother one year ago.  The cousins were fairly distant with each other.  Sadness upon sadness.

 But this summer, we’ve been given a chance to have the last word. 

 Several years ago I was doing some googling and came upon June’s high school class website.  They had remembered her, and other classmates who had passed on, by posting pictures of them and saying a few words. 

 There on my screen beamed her beautiful face with her 1969 thick shiny bouffant hair, eyes that twinkled with mirth, and a smile that owned her face!  June, alive!  Words that come to mind are vibrant, ebullient, laughing, earthy, flirty, passionate, passionate about her children, contemplative, real . . . a woman who knew she had made mistakes and was determined to live beyond them.

 I e-mailed the class representative and thanked her for remembering June.  I expressed how much it meant that I had come across the site to see them remember her . . . to know it was not just her family who missed her.  Linda Goodenberger Pierce sent back a lovely note and thus began an e-mail friendship I have enjoyed.

 Several months ago Linda let me know that the Class of 1969 had decided that during their 40^th reunion they would plant a tree at Calkins Nature Center  in Iowa Falls as a memorial to June and their other classmates who had died.  She wondered if I could provide addresses to family and friends who might want to know and receive an invitation. 

 The news hit me with some emotional force, but it took me some time to figure out why.  As I corresponded with Linda about the dedication and the boys and June, I realized that it was an opportunity for each of us in the family had been invited to have the last word and to choose what our last word would be regarding June. 

 Roger Ebert says “Resentment is letting someone live in your mind rent-free.”  I would amend it to say it is allowing someone to live in your being rent-free.  I think my grandparents, in pretty different ways, let Kim and the murder inhabit their being.  They are gone now and I trust them to God.

 In the Bible, God spoke everything into being: 

 “God spoke: “Earth, green up! Grow all varieties
      of seed-bearing plants,
   Every sort of fruit-bearing tree.”
      And there it was.
   Earth produced green seed-bearing plants,
      all varieties,
   And fruit-bearing trees of all sorts.
      God saw that it was good.”  (Genesis 1, The Message)

 He created—and creates—by his Word.  Words matter.  They have the power to destroy and they have the power to heal.

 On this July 4^th, at 10a at Calkins Nature Center, a tree—growing strong and tall and beautiful—will be planted as a lasting testimony of a life God spoke into being.  God created June for his pleasure.  She was a gift to our family. 

And so from now on, when I speak of June I will speak words that I hope will help create a new story of healing and connection for our family.  I hope to break the silence and speak June’s name—with some grief, but with so much more joy and love.  I will speak about her life and tell stories about the woman I was privileged to have in my life. 

 By that tree, I will tell her sons of their ebullient, vibrant, passionate, giggly, fun-loving, cool, delightful mom who delighted in every single thing about them.  I will remind them of how wanted they were and how enjoyed they were and how much joy she took in relating the stories of their adventures and exploits.  I will let them know how fun it was to listen to and watch her recount their successes and not-so-successful successes! 

 And even when we are gone, that tree will still be there.  My son, my brother and his children, and my cousins’ children, and their children’s children, and so on, will be able to go see a tree that was planted and dedicated to the memory of a woman who loved life, loved her family, and especially loved her boys.

 By God’s grace, we will have the last Word:

“I heard a voice thunder from the Throne: “Look! Look! God has moved into the neighborhood, making his home with men and women! They’re his people, he’s their God. He’ll wipe every tear from their eyes. Death is gone for good—tears gone, crying gone, pain gone—all the first order of things gone.” The Enthroned continued, “Look! I’m making everything new. Write it all down—each word dependable and accurate.”

 Then he said, “It’s happened. I’m A to Z. I’m the Beginning, I’m the Conclusion. From Water-of-Life Well I give freely to the thirsty. Conquerors inherit all this. I’ll be God to them, they’ll be sons and daughters to me.” (Revelations 21, The Message)