Tag Archives: Murder

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Healing

It’s been helpful to tell the story about my former sister-in-law’s murder to people who care about me or love me. I also completed an intake with my department’s employee assistance program last week and they’ve matched me with a therapist who can provide Eye Movement Reprocessing Desensitization (EMDR). I was able to sing with friends last night too, which was lovely.

EMDR uses techniques to engage both sides of your body with noise, light, your hands, etc. and the therapist has you talk about what happened and then you feel your feelings about the event or events. I know that sounds trite. “Feel your feelings.” However, people are more likely to numb with alcohol or drugs or play hours of video games. They also may sleep or read for hours shutting out the world instead of thinking about the event. Some people don’t remember the event at all!

In EMDR the therapist or clinician also takes about your safety and coping in initial sessions with resourcing for you. That way, if you’re really triggered about the event, you have something that you can rely on in the session and after the session is completed. I’m looking forward to it.

In another entry I’d written about the appeal that I have with theater, music, and movement for trauma treatment. Well, last night we had one of our singalongs that we do at my best friend’s house. My Boss came as well. We also had a man there with a thick accent that sounded like Arabic or was influenced by languages in the middle east. However, he said his name in Polish, so I’m not sure where he is from or how many languages he speaks. I would imagine it’s three or more.

He could play a box drum and later in the night he played a tambourine. It was very cool. He didn’t sing and called himself a percussionist. We had two ukuleles as well. My best friend played two songs on the guitar, but mostly played her ukulele. I have no idea where my guitar is! I’ll be living like this in my house through Monday night because of the painting.

We sing by request from the group. I learned a new song that was in my head this morning when I woke up. It was sweet and fun.

There was this time when we were singing and playing “Greatest Love of All” that I started to cry a bit. No one noticed and I was able to quickly stop. I was thinking about in 2021 when my sister-in-law got out her guitar and was playing songs and her kids were sitting with her on the floor. My son was listening, and my wife was singing some. I didn’t sing, but was so impressed with her playing. She could remember without any music so many songs and then later she got out some music from her closet and sang more.

My brother-in-law was hovering and going in and out of the room. Finally he started complaining about “bedtime.” It was the only time that I heard my sister-in-law use a curt tone with him. She said that she didn’t know how many more songs that she would be playing, but it would be a few. He stomped off.

I’m looking forward to starting therapy on Tuesday. Music last night was healing too. I want to be functioning better than I am right now in two weeks. However, I am so lucky to have resources and friendships as I work through this event.

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Empty

TRIGGER WARNING

In 2021, we three went to visit my wife’s family. I said that we would be staying in a hotel room because although we were welcome at my mother-in-law’s, I had never liked my brother-in-law who also lived there at the time. He lived there on a small amount of rent, had the upstairs with his other three family members, and still bitched about my mother-in-law and her boyfriend all the time. My mother-in-law and her boyfriend, who owned that beautiful house, were doing much of the childcare and my mother-in-law also cooked the meals for all of six of them for over a year when their daughter was born. They already had one son.

It was mostly an ok trip until the last day before we were to begin our drive home.

We started out the day with my sister-in-law having to work; although we had a hike of a wild cave planned that morning. Because she worked in the solar industry, my son expressed interest in it and she took him to work with her. He helped her with some of the installation and learned a ton, and they listened to Nirvana and Pearl Jam, which blew his 15-year-old mind.

My wife and I did this incredible hike together while they were at the house installing some solar hook-ups. It was a nice way to wait for her to be done working. I was grateful that my sister-in-law took my son to work.

After she and my son were done with the installation, and they were heading back to pick us up at the trailhead where she’d dropped my wife and I off. We all went back to my mother-in-law’s to pick up her two kids for our exploration of a wild cave. Unfortunately, she got a call from the homeowner who said that her streaming service and internet was not working. My sister-in-law explained how to hook it up again, but they didn’t want to work on it. She ultimately had to go back all the way out to their house, so we were delayed to leave for our wild cave hike.

I was starving. I looked in the fridge and asked my mother-in-law if I could have two of the cooked eggs in there because she was making muffins for the road for my sister-in-law and us for our drive back. The kitchen was busy. My sister-in-law and her family were going to San Diego the next day for a few days, and as I’d said, we were beginning our drive back home that day as well.

They were special eggs. They were cooked and then cold water cooled. Not soft boiled, but not hard boiled either. They were my special-brother-in-law-eggs. My mother-in-law said that after she was done with the muffins she’d make two exactly how my brother-in-law liked them as he would be taking them to San Diego. She was making those muffins for us (her daughter’s family) and them (her other daughter’s family).

I ate two, and then we all sat around on our phones waiting for my sister-in-law to get back from the homeowners where she only had to turn on a switch.

My brother-in-law came home and said, “Oh, nice. Everybody is on their damn phones.”

I said, “I’m paying a new premium for my bundled car and home policy and had something time sensitive.”

And he scoffed.

I thought to myself, “Why should an adult have to explain what an adult is doing on a phone?”

Then the missing eggs were discovered. He said, “What the fuck!” He started slamming cabinet doors and said, “This kitchen is a mess!”

My mother-in-law said that after she was done with the muffins she was replacing those two eggs and told me that I could have them. I should point out that my sister and brother-in-law had chickens.

Then, the freakshow ensued. He was screaming and yelling and saying fuck more times than anyone could count.

I left and got in my wife’s car and went to Safeway. My mother in law called me when I was at Safeway and asked me to pick up vanilla ice cream for her cobbler. I bought that and the eggs and came back to the house.

My sister-in-law and my brother-in-law were arguing in the driveway. After awhile he came over the car where I was parked two houses away and he said, “I didn’t know everyone is so sensitive!”

I said, “______, you’re in the wrong. You flipped out over two eggs that would be replaced. They will be and I bought you a dozen new ones. He said, “Well, I’m sorry.” I said, “Ok, I hope that you have some rest when you get to San Diego.”

We explored the wild cave only us three.

Wild and scary cave.

I guess that my telling everyone that I was raised by someone who raged and flew off the handle all the time and wouldn’t be around it or that behavior ever again was a catalyst. Within a few weeks of that day they had a family meeting. Within a few months they would move back to their house that they owned. My mother-in-law still helped with her grandkids all the time. I’ll never forget her telling me that night when we had cobbler at our hotel, “That is between them. I don’t understand her choice in a spouse.”

The following winter they moved. They had to complete some renovations on their old home before settling back there with their two kids. They lived there about two-years.

He murdered her there last month.

I have cried off and on all day. I texted my ex-wife in the late afternoon. It said that my son said that he’d spoken with her. I asked if she was all talked out and said that if she wasn’t, I’d listen. I talked to her for well over two hours. I had not spoken to her in 25-months.

I feel empty, depleted, and I hope that narcissist rots in hell.

Left behind are two orphaned children. I can’t believe that my sister-in-law is gone. She was funny, active and took me on some wonderful hikes. She played Nintendo with me in my basement before she had her kids. She could play guitar and was always up for anything. I’ll never laugh with her again or go on an adventure. My son never had the opportunity to learn from her again.

I’ll leave you with one of the last texts that I received from her “I’m glad that I got to spend some time getting to know ___ a little more too when you guys came out. His interests remind me a lot of my teenage years too. 🙂 We’re moving out of this house in a few months so I’ll have a chance to look at some of my old stuff I saved. If I see anything he might like I’ll save it for him. 🤠”