Broken

I'm coming to the conclusion that writing this sort of a book about a person is like being given a handful of broken jewels, and then attempting to put all of them back together again.  It is a meticulous task, and sometimes along the way, there are huge surprises, not all of them pleasant, and all funneling into the worst of tragedies.

I took Thistle out to a park near the ocean today, and watched her play.  I thought of how, no matter how much I hear of depravity and all the evils human beings inflict on each other, I am ever-surprised.  Why am I still shocked?  I guess it is because something in me does not want to believe entirely in the presence of evil in the world--and yet, after what I am learning as I find out more and more about Asha, I believe that some people really have a core of evil, that McClish was threatened by the light in Asha Veil.  Evil wants to destroy light, but the irony is, evil can be destroyed; it can be contained--but nothing can ever destroy light.  Nothing can destroy her good.

I feel like I am never going to be able to throw the switch for a blinding spotlight on what these crimes do to women, to family, to friends, or to memorialize every woman and child's life which was taken in this way...but perhaps I can, by writing this, light a small candle in a vast darkness.

Speaking of candles, I am decorating Asha's candle tomorrow.  I remember the beautiful candles set up outside the Ben Lomond Supermaket after she died; Frida Kahlo, the Virgin Mary, etc (veladoras).  On my own container candle's glass holder, I am going to put Asha's picture on one side, and on the other, Our Lady of Czestochowa, the patron saint of Poland.  This is what the icon looks like: Mary is depicted as a mother, and her face is scarred (from an attempt to deface the icon in the 1400s).