Right now my soul hurts so much I don't even know if I'll be able to write what I want to write. I don't even know if it will end up making sense, but I will try.
Yesterday, I received a phone call. One of those that I knew in the pit of my stomach just wasn't going to be good. My beautiful 23 year old nephew, Zach, had been murdered. Even just typing that *m* word in association with Zach feels wrong. According to the police, to the news reports, he was stabbed multiple times in the chest by one of his roommates. A roommate that, according to the other roommates, always got along with Zach. He has since disappeared and the police are searching for him. It just all seems to surreal to me. The situation hasn't sunk in enough for me to be angry, I'm just sad and confused. I know the anger will come and I trust that justice will be served one way or another, but right now all I can focus on is the pain.
My family and I are not strangers to grief. We have grieved together before, especially at the loss of my brother Gabe. Yet to me, this feels like it hurts more, like the cut is deeper. Maybe because I had scar tissue where the original cut was and now that scar has been ripped open, deeper and wider.
There is this part of me that just wants to know why. I want answers. I know that there are no real answers to this, nothing that will satisfy me, nothing that can turn back the clock and fix it. I know what I don't want to hear - all the platitudes that people spout. The bullshit like he was too good and God had to take him, or it was his time, or now we have another angel in heaven. F**k all that. God didn't take him, evil took him. Humanity took him. A broken person making a bad decision is what took him. God was there to pick up the pieces, I know that. I firmly believe that he is with God now, but that is only a minor comfort to me right now because I am selfish and I want him here. I want to hear his laugh and see his smile light up the room and hear him talking sports with my boys. I don't want my sister and her husband to have to know the loss of losing a child. I don't want to hear my fourteen year old sobbing in the next room because he will never be able to hang out with his cousin again.
I think that's all I can handle for now. Maybe in a few days I will be able to write again, share some memories. There are so many happy, joy filled memories with him. But right now they just hurt too much.