Tuesday, April 18, 2006

They Were Someone

As a member of various online writing groups I am treated to many topics, views and different opinions on world news, entertainment and just plain old gossip. Sometimes I respond, many times I don't. A few days ago I read a post of another member and it upset me for reasons I haven't quite come to grips with yet. I didn't respond to the poster, because I feel everyone has a right to their beliefs, but I just couldn't shake the feeling that their words left me with. My blog is a place where my opinion can be challenged, but not changed, so I decided to have a silent, public rebuttal here.

The information that shook me has to do with the disappearance of young women. Many of these women are most likely murder victims, who have suffered a horrific death. We need to know the facts as to how the victim ended up in the face of death to solve their crime. I guess the question I have is does it matter what our own personal opinion is of the person after they were killed? Especially if we didn't know them personally. These victims had families, friends, mothers, fathers. They were someone. I read that one person was tired of hearing about the girl that is missing from Alabama. She was described as a little hick that had no business going off with the men in question. The person typed as if this girl deserved to die. We don't know the true facts. Sadly, we never will. Inexperience, naivety and trust should never equal death.

No one, no matter how intoxicated, how misled or confused, has the right to be murdered. Another human being shouldn't be allowed to decide when is the last time you can be touched and shared with by your loved ones.This may be striking me so intensly because I have daughters. I was a fool many, many times. Drunk driving. Not knowing very much about a man but saying he loved me. Maybe I didn't suffer the same fate as the women that I speak of so I could write this. I'm sure that its more than this and will keep pushing until I find out exactly what it is.

A few weeks ago a young woman was found murdered and dumped on the roadway. The opinions flew about her. "Oh she was a whore, a drunk, she got what she deserved." At what moment did it become okay to say someone deserved to be murdered? We all don't receive a second chance, but should we suffer death as the result of our mistakes? Is it a mistake to tell a person no? Too many questions that will never be answered, at least satisfactory.

Human life has no meaning to some. The complexity of how our body works, the meticulous way we are created, can so easily be taken away by a bullet, our own hands or by something else manmade. As of today, I truly believe opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one and some are full of shit. The missing, the dead - they're not simply chalk outlines. They were someone. Regardless of how long it takes, or the way the met their demise, they deserve to have their stories told.