I should be doing yardwork...

And yet, here I am. I feel bad, I haven't posted as frequently as I'd originally wanted to. I'm not sure why. I think there's a few reasons for it though. For one thing, it is often quite emotional for me to write this stuff, and not always in a cathartic, "get it off my chest" kinda way. For another thing, I'm still sort of indecisive about how personal I want to get with this. It's weird, I want people to know the story, and I'm not at all afraid to tell it. But somehow, it feels, I don't know, different, writing about my life here versus say, standing in front of a room full of people telling my story.

Which brings me to my post du jour (technically week or even fortnight would probably be more accurate, I just don't know how to say either of them in French...)

I speak regularly, mostly at Victim Impact Panels, about what happened to the Blond Child and her Mother. If you don't know, VIP's are typically court ordered as part of the sentence for first-time DUI offenders. The way we present them, there's a victim speaker (in this case, me) and an offender speaker. The young man I've been speaking with regularly for the last year or so, Adam, is truly remorseful for killing his best friend and lives with his memory every day. And believe me when I tell you that that doesn't happen as often as you might think. So let me just say that while I'm appalled at what he did, I'm encouraged by what he's doing. But anyway, the offenders, usually 150 to 175 of them at our monthly panel in North suburban Chicago, have to sit there and listen to our stories as we pour our hearts out for them. Then, when we're done, they have to file past us and shake our hands. Many offer some form of verbal acknowledgement ranging from sincere horror at what they've done to a mumbled, barely audible bleat.

I think it's safe to say that nothing that happens there surprises me anymore, especially after the last couple of months...

After the August panel, as we were standing there shaking hands and making small talk with the offenders that filed past, a woman in line said something to me that really caught me off guard. She was older than I am, I'd guess she was in her 70's though she dressed like a younger woman and had her hair done in a fashion I would've associated with a younger woman. As this woman came to me in the line, she looked near me (not at me, there was no eye contact, more like a near-miss) and said, and I quote "Thank You, that was enjoyable."

Excuse me?

Enjoyable?

What part did you like best? Where the Blond Child was killed or where my Wife died suddenly?

Enjoyable? Are you freakin' kidding me???

Of course I couldn't say anything at the time. What could I have said? If I said all the things that raced through my mind (see above) I would have lost everyone within earshot (and there would have been plenty because I would have screamed it at her) and I would have looked like the bad guy. So instead, I just filed it as a lesson learned.

Last month, at the September panel, while I was speaking I happened to look at a woman who was staring intently at her lap. I thought that was a little odd, considering everyone else in the room was making some kind of effort to look at me, so as I spoke, I continued to stare at her. After a minute or two, she must have felt me staring and looked up at me. She moved her hands further into her lap and looked at me as though what I was saying was the most interesting thing she'd ever heard.

At least it was interesting for 3 or 4 minutes when her attention was once again drawn to her lap. And her cell phone, which she was holding there. So I stared some more. And when that didn't work, I stopped speaking. That got her attention. I asked her if she was done texting and she denied doing that. She held her phone up and demonstrated for me how she would have been texting. At that point I asked her if she was listening when everyone in the room was told to turn their phones off or if she felt that didn't apply to her.

I asked the rest of the room to bear with me for a moment while I re-composed and continued with the presentation.

I'm not quite sure where I'm going with this one, but I guess my point is that some people get it, some people don't and some people never will. And this really has nothing to do with drunk driving or grieving or anything else really, that I've written about here. I guess as much as anything it's to just say publicly that there are times when I. really. hate. people.