Imagine a call in the middle of the night. The caller says something terrible thing has happened to your college aged child and they need you to come down to the local police station to discuss the matter further. You panic. You’re expecting the worse but hoping for the best. You talk yourself down by telling yourself to stop worrying, intellectualizing that if it was really bad, someone would’ve said something over the phone, dismissing that they did say something terrible had happened. You finally calm down because you realize that your panic is not helping your unknowing and you want to get to the station in one piece. You pull up to the station and someone is waiting for you, your heart goes back to pounding again. They tell you that your baby girl who is one month away from graduating college has been murdered. You are in a state of shock and disbelief. The blow gets even worse when they tell you she was murdered at the hands of her ex-boyfriend, the boyfriend you knew and trusted.
The recent events of Lacrosse players George Huguely and Yeardley Love’s story didn’t exactly play out like this, but I would imagine no matter how they told Ms. Love’s mother that she was murdered it didn’t matter.
George Huguely was arrested for the murder of his ex-girlfriend at the University of Virginia this past week. The rumor around campus was that George had somewhat of a temper and would let it get the best of him from time to time. The couple had recently had an incident that was witnessed by friends where George allegedly assaulted Yeardley while they were hanging out. After further review they found out that George has a rap sheet with his temper playing the lead role.
Many speculate that George has been given free passes because his parents are wealthy and have been able to contain him to some extent. My heart goes out to the young lady, Yeardley Love who was at the peak of her life and looking forward to new things. I’m pretty sure nowhere in her vision did she think that her life was going to end this way.
It got me to thinking how many times I have or someone else known of an incident or two that may have involved a domestic dispute and we brush it under the rug because we either don’t think anything of it, didn’t want to get involved, or didn’t want to get someone in trouble.
Death due to domestic violence is something that can be prevented. I think that we should speak up to avoid another tragedy such as this one. Two lives have been destroyed, one ending in death and the other ending in prison because no one (seemingly) held this young man accountable for his actions sooner in life.
I’m fine if I never see or hear about another woman or man killed in a jealous rage because someone didn’t get what they wanted. We can’t afford to be silent, please speak up!
