Living In Reverse

Ah, finally, there is time to write…

There are many things happening behind the scenes, but it is not time to talk about those things. This is a time to wait. But I do not mean it is a time to wait in the sense implied by the common parlance which typically conjures images of agonizing moments wasted on line at the post office. Instead, I mean to suggest that this is a time to wait on God. One of my favorite scriptures declares, "But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." Isaiah 40:31. The Hebrew word for wait is “qavah”. Qavah has a literal and a figurative meaning as used in this scripture. Figuratively, it implies faith and expectancy, while, in literal terms, it means to bind together. When taken together, these two meanings suggest that to wait is to bind oneself to God with expectancy. But beyond that, the Hebrew word qavah alludes to literal oneness with God. It anticipates a kind of twisting together in the way one might twist or braid the strands of a rope. When viewed in the light of this metaphor, Isaiah 40:31 takes on a much deeper meaning (i.e., by intertwining myself with God, my faith is enhanced such that I am filled with anticipation and moved to flight). In short, this scripture implies an attitude of certainty. The imagery of the passage is filled with motion and energy, such that this waiting I speak of is infused with joy, and dare I say, celebration.

How appropriate! In my waiting, I am to celebrate, to embrace God, to soar. I say this is appropriate because, much to my shock, this latest round of tragedy has softened my heart and made me available for life at a much deeper level. I have always said that I had a choice to make the day my mother died. I could either have chosen to shut down my heart or I could have chosen to let her death open me. For all these years, I thought I had done the latter. But lately, I have come to realize that I buried myself with her. The awful truth is that in the years since she died, I have seldom let my guard down. I have even held my own daughter at arms length because the thought of really loving her and then losing her too was more than I could stand. This is the real legacy of the horrifying acts perpetrated that August day - the tiny, almost imperceptible ways in which I also died and the very tangible ways in which my inability to really be present have robbed my mother's precious granddaughter of the mother she deserved. The day I found out about the murder, I spent the afternoon (before the call) half asleep on the couch with my then fiance. From the moment the first horrified screams escaped my lungs I have never allowed myself to rest quite like that or to love like I did then for that matter. In fact, I let my life turn into the hiding inherent in perpetual motion. I turned my heart to ice. I let my passion for myself, my life, my gifts and my husband literally burn out like the flames of a fire left untended, abandoned. I wrote a poem about this turning away years ago:

I was at rest,
Deep in quiet respite,
When a nightmare came to call on me,
To end my quiet slumber.
It stripped away the color,
Tore at the fiber of my dreams.
Like a wave it came to claim me,
To quiet the last whispers of my youth.
I struggled to contain it,
Threw myself against the wind.
But the tide of broken memories proved more than I could hold,
And in silence and defeat,
I finally turned away.

And so, now, in the revisiting of my loss, I am challenged to walk this path in reverse, to move from the turning away back to the place that is filled with rest, youthful dreams and the quiet respite of lazy Sunday afternoons spent lazing about in the arms of a man that I love. I am called back to the place that is splashed with the color of the bright blue sky and the scent of fresh air on my face. I am to soar like the eagle. I am to lean into life, let it wash over me, claim me again. I even hear the voice of trust beckoning me.

As I am writing this, I am struck by the fact that my mother died in the domain of the eagle. She died embracing life, trusting God, loving lavishly, soaring. She died leaning into the wind, searching out her dreams, and I missed it. For 12 years, I missed it because I could not appreciate the authenticity of her choices. I was filled with judgment. I stubbornly refused to see her, refused to hear her. But today, in honor of her, I cry out to God for the kind of courage my mother held within her on the day I lost her, and I note that flight takes faith for only God can be my wings.

Therefore, in faith, on this day, I choose the magnificence of a life fully lived, and I claim the rich bounty that awaits me just beyond the precipice. I refuse to settle, to make friends with the ordinary. So many times in the long years of mourning, I have surrendered the sky in the name of safety and the illusion of control. But tonight I have seen the path to heaven. It is littered with the dry bones of those who refused to fly.

Pour out the water of heaven sweet Spirit. Soak my bones in ecstasy. I choose to leap!

Love and Calm Assertion

Today I feel torn between two seemingly polar opposite objectives. On the one hand, I feel compelled to speak up and speak out about my mother’s death. I need to know who and I need to why. I also need to know that her killer(s) are no longer free to perpetrate the same senseless acts of violence again. Yet, on the other hand, I have already forgiven the person(s) that took my mother’s life. When I say I have "forgiven", I mean I have ceased to judge. I have separated the act from the actor and recognized murder for what it really is: The failure to understand that what we do to another we do to ourselves. Put another way, I see clearly that we, the human race, are one body. When any member suffers or is left behind, the whole body aches. So, rather than crying out for vengeance, I find myself praying for my mother's killer(s). I keep imagining what it would be like for him (them) to experience the kind of deep ecstasy I have found during the moments when I have recklessly abandoned myself before God. In those moments the dividing line that usually seems to exist between me and the vastness of God’s love disappears. My encounters with God's love have transformed me again and again.

Over the years, God has erased my wounds one by one. In God’s presence, I am literally undone. Therefore, I feel as though I know a secret the telling of which would destroy the entrenched self hatred that makes murder possible in the first place. I feel helpless to tell this secret though. I have a hard time imagining that my mother’s killer(s) would be able to receive it (or that I would be able to communicate it). Certainly, words seem inadequate. This fact does not lessen my desire to impart the knowledge. In other words, I don’t just want my mother’s killer(s) to be brought to justice, at least not the kind of imperfect retributive justice our society dispenses. Instead, I am fervently hoping for his (their) reclamation. To hope for anything else would be a violation of the woman I have become and the woman my mother was. She believed that lost souls could be found and that lives can be changed with one touch from the Source. I am only following in her footsteps. At the same time, however, I am certain murder cannot be allowed to stand unchecked.

As I grapple with these seeming contradictions, I am also enlarging my vision. I am expanding the horizons of the possible. I can’t quite formulate the picture. But I am standing here in the gap holding a space for the miracle to unfold. I am opening myself as the bridge between the healing hand of God and the heavy hand of the criminal justice system, and in so doing, I am rejecting hatred and vengeance in favor of love and calm assertion.

To the Moon and Back

Mommy,

I want to say a few things [about your mother]. Here it goes:

(1) I am mad because I never met her.
(2) The person took away her ability to hold me in her arms.
(3) When I would tell people, I would say my mother’s mom. But now, I realize I never called her Grandma because I was so hurt inside.
(4) I realize that when I was younger, I never thought about her, never missed her. But that was because I never had memories of her, never had anything to miss.
(5) I realize now I was denied the opportunity to love my grandma & to miss her.
(6) I can’t say I know how you felt, but I can say that I felt something similar…not 2 have lost someone in my family, 2 never have the chance to know her.
(7) I’m so sorry.
(8) I’d wish, if I had one wish, it would be to have at least one day with her.
(9) Even though I never met her, I know there’s still a part of me that is her and that loves her to the moon and back.

Love,

Verna's Granddaughter

P.S.

I miss her even though I never got the privilege to meet her. The person who killed her took something important to me & I will never forget that! I will never forget that smile she had in her pictures. Love, your daughter

The Love Part

My mother and I had a complicated relationship. We differed in approach, opinion, faith, morality, politics…This is not very different from the relationship many young women have with their mothers. The difference is that my mother died before we ever had the chance to resolve the last vestiges of the conflicts born of stubborn adolescent rebellion. She died while I was still angry with her over so many things. This anger was somehow frozen in time. It was just easier to stay mad at her. Though the tragedy of her death broke my heart, the breaking was somehow less painful because of the anger.

Yesterday, I read aloud to a friend the original blog posted on this page. She cried. Through her sobs she noted that I could have let this tragedy (and so many of the other tragedies I have experienced) turn me into a vicious and horrible woman. She thought it was remarkable that I could pray for the person who killed my mother. She asked how I have kept my heart soft. “Grace” I said. Then it occurred to me that my mother was like that. She had a very inauspicious beginning in life. Bad things happened to her as a child. She didn’t always know how to be intimate with me because no one was intimate with her. This was one of the things I was angry about when she died (though I could not, at 24, have put it into words). As my friend sobbed, my anger turned to reverence. My mother could have hardened her heart. She could have been bitter. She could have given up. But she didn’t! She continued to extend herself the best way she knew how.

I haven’t looked at a picture of my mother in years. It was just too painful. I find I can’t take my eyes off of the silly picture the newspaper posted. I wasn’t there the day it was taken. I have heard that she was dressed for a play with her Sunday school class. I used to cringe every time the newspaper printed that picture. The shawl on her head just looked so strange. But today I am not looking at the shawl. Today I am reminded of her brilliant green eyes and they way they used to sparkle and dance with enthusiasm. I am struck by her uncommon beauty. Several of my friends have remarked that I look just like her. I keep thinking, “I should be so lucky.”

I called this blog, “Remembering Verna with Love.” But I have been so angry at and driven to speak out about the recent events that I simply forgot about the love part. It turns out the title of this blog was apropos nonetheless. For the first time since my mother died, I am at peace with her memory, and I love her more than words can express. Funny how we sometimes tell ourselves where we need to go long before we are ready to take the first step.

Op-Ed Column Submitted to FW Star-Telegram

My mother, Verna Dennis, was brutally murdered in August of 1997. My mother received 23 blows to the head with a pry bar before the killer cut her throat with a butcher knife from her own kitchen. Twelve years after the fact, my family and I are still in agony over her death and we are no closer to knowing who killed our mother.

We do know that: police arrested Michael Puryear in 2005 and charged him with capital murder; the charges were based, in large part, on a supposed confession reported to police by Brian Burroughs; Burroughs was facing felony DWI charges; despite our own reservations, for a period of three years the investigating officer and the DA’s office assured us they had the right guy; Michael Puryear spent more than a year in jail; the case was set to go to trial on June 15, 2009; on Monday, June 1, 2009, the prosecutor suddenly and for unknown reasons, decided to polygraph Brian Burroughs; and upon doing so, the DA’s office immediately dropped all the charges against Michael Puryear (after the statute of limitations had run on the original DWI charge leveled by Mr. Burroughs). My family and I are baffled and outraged. We believe the entire Fort Worth community should be outraged too.

At the time my mother died, she was involved in some risky activities. She had a big heart, especially for those no one else seemed to care about. After my father died, my mother began visiting the men’s maximum security prison in Huntsville as a part of a prison ministry. She became engaged to an inmate in the Wynne Unit. She died moments after returning from a visit with this man. As far as we know, police immediately dismissed the possibility that her involvement with the prison system put her in contact with her killer. They showed little or no interest in getting a description of the jewelry stolen from her house. They did, however, accuse my brothers and me of the crime. They moved on to other suspects only after we turned over the results of polygraph exams. The next person to become a suspect was my mother’s business partner. The chief reason? She refused to take a polygraph test. For years, the police assured us that my mother’s partner was responsible for her death, until, she relented and took a polygraph test.

Despite the fact that polygraph tests are known to be unreliable, they seem to be the gold standard of truthfulness set by the Fort Worth Police Department. So, why didn’t the police or the DA’s office polygraph their witness before forcing our family to relive this ordeal again; before imprisoning Michael Puryear for more than a year; and before the statute of limitations expired on the charges originally leveled at their own informant? Will Brian Burroughs ever be held accountable for the damage he (seemingly) has caused or for the DWI? Will the police ever fully investigate the connection between my mother’s involvement with the prison system, and her tragic death? Beyond all of that, why is the polygraph test seemingly the chief investigative tool used by the Fort Worth Police Department in the first place?

On June 5, 2009, someone calling themselves “walkinthelight” posted the following information on the Fort Worth Star-Telegram message board:

The answer to who murdered Verna Dennis can be found at the Wynne Unit in Huntsville. This is the unit Ms. Dennis left the day she was murdered after visiting her inmate boyfriend/fiancee. Inmates on the inside arranged for a small woman to get a ride with Ms. Dennis and murder her. This is well-known among the old-time inmates at Wynne and some of the guards. The police did not look seriously at this possibility, because they had their mind set as to who the murderers were.

For the first time in 12 years, someone has finally said something that makes sense to my family and to me. Will police listen?

Truth and Justice

The following is my reaction to the article published at http://www.star-telegram.com/189/story/1413519.html?storylink=omni_popular earlier this week.

Truth and Justice

“I have held my peace for

A long, long, long, long time

And in my silence you thought

That I was all together like you.

And in your heart

you were settled in complacency

You said, '[S]he won't even respond.

'You said, '[S]he's not interested.

"You said, '[S]he's dead and gone.

"But I've been silent for such

A long, long, long, long time

But I'm about to gasp, to pant,

To cry out, to cry out,

I'm going to shout!”

Misty Edwards (People Get Ready)

Monday, I learned that the trial will not happen. The reason? The district attorney’s office finally (after three years) decided to polygraph their own witness, the informant upon whose testimony at least half the weight of this case rested. To say he failed the test would suggest that he subjected himself to the polygraph in the first instance. According to the DA, what he actually did was blatantly attempt to beat the test.

As I try to integrate all of this, I am comparing the handling of the state’s chief witness to the treatment I received as the victim’s daughter. The police would not let us rest and would not consider any other suspects, until my family and I had been polygraphed and finger-printed, had our blood drawn and been informally accused (directly and by implication).

I am left with a nasty taste in my mouth. The day after I heard, I had to leave work. I was overcome by rage. As I drove, I screamed. I let out loud screeching sounds that originated deep within me and burned my throat on their way out. I screamed until I couldn’t scream any longer. I am angry! In fact, twelve years of anger too long suppressed in politeness and fear is threatening to break forth in earth shattering dimensions. I am tempted to try and convict a whole passel of people, if not God himself, for the things I have suffered. Some part of me wants a pound of flesh, not just from the man who killed my mother, but also from those who cut new wounds over and over again: the police, the prosecutor and now, the (apparently) false witness.

Of course, this rage I feel over the new wounds should not detract from the old. It is just that the original wounds seem trapped in the past or, perhaps buried there. It is as if those wounds are lost in the moments I spent stepping over the puddles of my own mother’s blood and in the moments when I saw the brutality of the attack reflected in the drops of her blood that covered everything from the ceiling to the overturned furniture…little bits of her spirit spilled senselessly and without regard for the life she had lived, the memories she held, the moments we will never share. In those moments, I thought the great chasm would swallow me whole. But it didn’t. I survived.

I survived! I pulled my life back together and went on in spite of the tragedy. But I have never been left in peace to enjoy the fruits of my labor. Closure has never come for me. Instead, my fledgling orchards have been cut down again and again each time I was forced to relive this ordeal, and now my harvest has been spoiled once more by what seems, from my vantage point, to be a travesty of justice, and a stunning display of carelessness and disregard, for me, my family and the accused. These new wounds are open, weeping, aching. Their effects may yet ripple through the years in ways that I can only imagine. They are made up of the mental and emotional resources diverted from my daughter at a time when she needed all that I could offer; the cost of lost opportunities in a new job; moments of precious free time spent in mourning and tears shed in the place of laughter; a family torn asunder again by the suspect’s proximity to my brother; my splintered insides; my exhaustion and the last dying embers of faith in a system that I feel has failed, if not violated my family and me, over and over again. I am left with the legacy of misplaced trust and false hope. Yes, there is a part of me that wants more than a pound of flesh. It is the same part of me that wants to divide life into neat categories of victims and villains. It was this part of me that knelt down years ago and asked God for the truth about my mother’s death. At that time I had a particular truth in mind. I wanted to know who and why so that someone could be held accountable (if not punished) for my pain. Since then I have learned that truth is relative.

For a long time, just as I thought truth existed as an entity, fixed, predetermined and discoverable, I thought my pain was my own. I have since learned that my pain, my loss and the endless black hole that opens in my center when I think of it all, are only mine in the sense that I am a part of this great whole to which we all belong. I am a part of the story we are all weaving. But I do not own this pain. It was brought to me on the wings of other people’s choices. I do not own the truth either. It is fluid and dependent upon one’s vantage point. Even within my own soul, truth is an elusive, ever evolving, living, breathing, intangible thing.

I am struggling at this moment to hold these realizations in my heart next to my pain and to resist the urge to create victims, villains and neat categories of truth. At the same time, I am searching for my voice. I am desperate for someone to hear me, to receive my story and be changed by it. In fact, the impersonal nature of this whole experience is what bothers me, perhaps even more than anything else. I am struck by how some of the key players seem not to have been moved at all by my family’s humanity. I feel as though we have been lost in a drama in which everyone is actively pursuing their agenda, and so interacting with the other characters, while remaining essentially untouched by their unfolding. I can’t help but also note that my mother’s memory has been sullied by it all. She has not been honored in the least. The particulars of her life and her death appear to have gotten lost beneath a rush to judgment fostered by some vast need to hold someone, anyone, accountable. Indeed, her story seems to have gotten lost in the marshalling of facts and the proving of a case.

What has happened to us and to our sense of community and relatedness? What has happened to our capacity to sit with things as they percolate, our willingness to take in the nuances and our ability to interact with the stories and the people that cross our paths? In this context, it feels as though these things have been irredeemably lost in the quagmire of retributive justice in which restoration of the community and the caretaking of survivors take a backseat to the promotion of careers, politics, the molding of stories by disinterested professionals for the sake of a conviction (or acquittal), the clearing of caseloads and the meting out of punishment to no one in particular.

In the final analysis, I feel a bit like my family and I are more like collateral damage than the central focus of this whole exercise. We stand here naked, holding our insides in our hands, wondering when the winds will stop howling. Meanwhile, the district attorney’s office (and their snitch), much like the killer(s), have seemingly moved on with scarcely a hint of sincere sorrow for the mess they have left behind. I will, however, commend the police department, as they have not closed the case and remain accessible to us.

At this moment, I am also struggling to hold on to some higher ideal. I am struggling to allow myself to be touched in my deepest recesses by the truly sorrowful nature of it all. And I am struggling toward a new hope: the hope that somehow, in some way, we will all be changed for the better by these events, if only by the retelling of them with awe and with compassion for all involved. In spite of everything, my mourning heart is filled with compassion. I feel compassion for the prosecutor who looks at murder all day long. I feel compassion for the detective who walks among thieves and liars every day. I feel compassion for my mother and for all the memories she will never make and for the ones she will never impart. I feel compassion for my family in whom this sad legacy will always reside and for the future generations whose lives will be shaped by the things that have stunted our lives and our ability to parent as we might have. I feel compassion for the man who may have been falsely accused. Most of all, I feel compassion for the false witness (if indeed he is a liar) and for the killer(s). What great malady of the human heart drives a person to such things?

Dear God, be with us all. Touch each of us in the ways that will matter the most. Bless us with your love and your presence. Though I am in the valley of the shadow of death, I place my trust in you and in the healing elixir that is your divine love. Pour it into us in buckets full. My mother would have wanted it that way.