Thirteen months ago I wrote a post about a murder of a former student and attempted murder of her sister and unborn baby I said “My heart has been heavy today because when I arrived at school Thursday I learned that only an hour earlier a former student who graduated from our high school a short two years ago, was stabbed to death by her boyfriend and father of her baby. He also critically wounded her sister and her unborn baby. She was 19. Her baby is only three months old.”

I wrote of how everyone who came in contact with this young woman in the four years she went to our school saw evidence of physical abuse by her boyfriend. I told of how one day some 16 months earlier, that I noticed she had come to school with the whites of both of her eyes completely blood red. I told of how when I had asked if she was all right she responded as usual with an “ I am fine just had an accident with my boyfriend” and the best I could do was to tell her to talk to one of the school counselors. I explained how I was told by our campus police officer that when a person’s eyes are that red it is the result of attempted strangulation. I told how he had said based upon what he observed she had been minutes away from death.

I wrote “I find myself going from anger at the young man who took the life of this promising young woman to anger at society who glorifies such acts of violence in music, movies and television, to anger at myself for waiting for someone else to help her, to grieving over this unbelievable loss.” I said then and I find myself still wondering when we as a community will stand up against all violence or if everyone is too afraid to stand up against it? I wondered then if this lesson was strong enough for me to be among those who help prevent senseless acts of violence, so that we can make the hurting stop.” I know now that for me at least it was and is. For others in the community I am not sure that it was.

Since the murder of our student, I found myself grieving for her over the last year. In early spring I found myself grieving for her sister when she had her baby. As the result of stabbing our student’s sister and her unborn baby numerous times, her baby was born with severe disabilities. I found myself grieving for her and her sister again when her sister’s baby died after living only six months after she was born. I found myself grieving again on the anniversary of our student’s murder when her killer escaped prison. He was caught after a week running but when he was caught his picture was in the paper. I found myself grieving again when a cousin of one of those who helped him escape who goes to our school cut the picture out and taped it to the front of his shirt. This boy was giving tribute to a man he considered a hero.

I found myself grieving for anyone who could ever even consider a woman abuser and a murderer of a woman and baby a hero. He did nothing worthy of admiration only of scorn. I grieve for a community who tries to act as if everything is all right whenever an act of violence occurs but does not say enough is enough.

I lost two teeth because I tried to stop a fight. This was a fight that didn’t begin at school the day I stopped the fight, but was brought into the school from a fight that had continued from the day before in one of the school’s neighborhoods. This was a fight that had not begun in that neighborhood even the day before it was brought into school but was begun before school started…………twenty-five years earlier. It was a fight that has gone through different fighters, men and women from two families. This was and is community-sanctioned violence. The truth in my claim is that it has been allowed to continue for twenty-five years.

I grieve for a society that finds violence is more acceptable than kindness and love. I grieve for generations of people who have grown to accept violence as part of life. I have not accepted that and never will. I grieve because until society says it is not acceptable to hurt or kill women, until society says it is not acceptable to hurt or kill those you disagree with, nightmares like the one that happened to our student will be repeated over and over again. I grieve because society seemingly has accepted violence to be part of the human condition that it has discounted human lives to a point where human lives are just some more trash waiting for the landfill.

As I grieve I also have hope because I know there are a small group of people who feel as I do. Fighting violence in society is a lot like fighting windmills in that it seems like a wasted effort. I wrote in another post called Fighting Windmills fighting windmills is the right thing to do. I may never know the day when the windmills stop but because I fight the windmills there is a small chance that others will join the cause. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow but someday there will be others that join with me. I never wanted to go after windmills, but it seems like some of us are meant to go after windmills. The call for me and for everyone who is brave is to not be afraid but to go out and fight the windmills. Maybe just maybe, one day those who join the fight will be victors.........maybe just maybe those windmill fighters already are.