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).
My name is Joan McMillan and this blog is, as Emily Dickinson says, "my letter to the world." I am currently working on a nonfiction book about the murder of a young woman, Asha Veil, born Joanna Dragunowicz, and her unborn daughter, Anina, on September 9, 2006. My book is meant to honor her life and illuminate the need to create a safer world for women and children.
To read an excerpt from the book, please click on the following link:
ashaveilbook.blogspot.com
An excerpt from The Pleasure Palace, my romantic comedy, can be found here:
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