Grief Diaries: Surviving Loss by Homicide

By Lynda Cheldelin Fell, Donna R Gore and Nicola Belisle

Part of the 5-star book series, Grief Diaries: Surviving Loss by Homicide shares the poignant journeys of men and women seeking healing and hope in the aftermath of losing a loved one to murder.

Offering 10 firsthand accounts about navigating the legal system, sorting belongings, facing the holidays and more, r

• Language: English
• Publisher: AlyBlue Media
• Release date: Jul 1, 2016
• ISBN: 9781944328399

Lynda Cheldelin Fell

LYNDA CHELDELIN FELL is an educator, speaker, author of over 30 books including the award-winning Grief Diaries, and founder of the International Grief Institute. Visit www.LyndaFell.com.

Book preview

Grief Diaries

SURVIVING LOSS BY HOMICIDE

True stories about surviving loss of a

loved one by kidnapping or homicide

LYNDA CHELDELIN FELL

with

DONNA R. GORE, M.A.

NICOLA BELISLE

FOREWORD BY LADYJUSTICE

National Advocate & Host of Shattered Lives Radio

Grief Diaries

Surviving Loss by Homicide—2nd ed.

True stories of surviving loss of a loved one by kidnapping or homicide.

Lynda Cheldelin Fell/Donna R. Gore/Nicola Belisle

Grief Diaries www.GriefDiaries.com

Cover Design by AlyBlue Media, LLC

Interior Design by AlyBlue Media LLC

Published by AlyBlue Media, LLC

Copyright © 2018 by AlyBlue Media All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the publisher.

ISBN: 978-1-944328-14-6

Library of Congress Control Number: 2015916911

AlyBlue Media, LLC

Ferndale, WA 98248

www.AlyBlueMedia.com

This book is designed to provide informative narrations to readers. It is sold with the understanding that the writers, authors or publisher is not engaged to render any type of psychological, legal, or any other kind of professional advice. The content is the sole expression and opinion of the authors and writers. No warranties or guarantees are expressed or implied by the choice to include any of the content in this book. Neither the publisher nor the author or writers shall be liable for any physical, psychological, emotional, financial, or commercial damages including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential or other damages. Our views and rights are the same: You are responsible for your own choices, actions and results.

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

GRIEF DIARIES

Testimonials

CRITICALLY IMPORTANT . . . I want to say to Lynda that what you are doing is so critically important. –DR. BERNICE A. KING, Daughter of Dr. Martin Luther King

INSPIRATIONAL . . . Grief Diaries is the result of heartfelt testimonials from a dedicated and loving group of people. By sharing their stories, the reader will find inspiration and a renewed sense of comfort as they move through their own journey. -CANDACE LIGHTNER, Founder of Mothers Against Drunk Driving

DEEPLY INTIMATE . . . Grief Diaries is a deeply intimate, authentic collection of narratives that speak to the powerful, often ambiguous, and wide spectrum of emotions that arise from loss. I so appreciate the vulnerability and truth embedded in these stories, which honor and bear witness to the many forms of bereavement that arise in the aftermath of death.

-DR. ERICA GOLDBLATT HYATT, Chair of Psychology, Bryn Athyn College

MOVING . . . We learn from stories throughout life. In Grief Diaries, the stories are not only moving but often provide a rich background for any mourner to find a gem of insight that can be used in coping with loss. Reread each story with pen in hand and you will find many that are just right for you.

-DR. LOUIS LAGRAND, Author of Healing Grief, Finding Peace

VITAL . . . Grief Diaries: Surviving Loss of a Pregnancy gives voice to the thousands of women who face this painful journey every day. Often alone in their time of need, these stories will play a vital role in surrounding each reader with warmth and comfort as they seek understanding and healing in the aftermath of their own loss. -JENNIFER CLARKE, obstetrical R.N., Perinatal Bereavement Committee at AMITA Health Adventist Medical Center, founder of Baby Jasmine’s Angel Nursery and advocate of CuddleCots

A FORCE . . .The writers of this project, the Grief Diaries anthology series, are a force to be reckoned with. I’m betting we will be agents of great change.

-MARY LEE ROBINSON, Author and Founder of Set an Extra Plate initiative

HEALING . . . Grief Diaries: Surviving Loss of a Pregnancy gives voice to a grief so private, most women bear it alone. These diaries of pregnancy loss can heal hearts and begin to build community and acceptance to speak the unspeakable, to acknowledge each pregnancy loss and the child that would have been. Share this book with your sisters, mothers, grandmothers and friends who have faced the grief of pregnancy loss. Pour a cup of tea together and know that you are no longer alone. -DIANNA VIAGIANOS ARMENTROUT, Poetry Therapist & Author of Walking the Labyrinth of My Heart: A Journey of Pregnancy, Grief and Infant Death

INCREDIBLE . . .Thank you so much for doing this project, it’s absolutely incredible!-JULIE MJELVE, Founder, Grieving Together

STUNNING . . . Grief Diaries treats the reader to a rare combination of candor and fragility through the eyes of the bereaved. Delving into the deepest recesses of the heartbroken, the reader easily identifies with the diverse collection of stories and richly colored threads of profound love that create a stunning read full of comfort and hope. -DR. GLORIA HORSLEY, President, Open to Hope Foundation

WONDERFUL . . .Grief Diaries is a wonderful computation of stories written by the best of experts, the bereaved themselves. Thank you for building awareness about a topic so near and dear to my heart. -DR. HEIDI HORSLEY, Adjunct Professor, School of Social Work, Columbia University, Author, Co-Founder of Open to Hope Organization

"OUTSTANDING . . .Lynda and her team did an outstanding job of moving all contributors through the process in a gentle, yet efficient way. Most importantly, the project team set up questions for contributors that were fashioned to elicit thoughtful and insightful answers. -MARY LEE ROBINSON, Author, The Widow or Widower Next Door

HOPE AND HEALING . . . You are a pioneer in this field and you are breaking the trail for others to find hope and healing. -KRISTI SMITH, Bestselling Author & International Speaker

SURVIVING LOSS BY HOMICIDE

Dedication

To our beloved:

Moments are fleeting,

memories are permanent,

love is forever.

Heidi N. Allen

Richard Belisle

Jim Bowerman

Elizabeth Anne Carlson

Kathy Lynn Gloddy

Donald W. Gore

Joanna Larson Hammink

James Harms

Karissa Marie Kunco

Timothy Reber

Uncle Eric

Uncle Jack

SURVIVING LOSS BY HOMICIDE

Contents

Testimonials

Dedication

Contents

Foreword

Preface

The Beginning

Facing the Aftermath

Planning the Funeral

Braving the Transition

Working with the Law

Navigating the System

Trusting the Process

Answering the Question

The Broken Heart

Facing the Dates

Impact on Relationships

Testing of Faith

Impact on Health

Struggling with the Quiet

Making Sense of Fears

Seeking Comfort

Finding Forgiveness

Searching for Hope

Walking the Journey

Meet the Writers

Karen Beaudin

Nicola Belisle

Lisa Buske

Audrey Carlson

Donna R. Gore

Carl Harms

Erica Johnson

Kayla Kunco

Joanne Lose

Brooke Ninni Matthews

Nancy Redmond

Thank You

Lynda Cheldelin Fell

BY LADYJUSTICE

Foreword

In 1981, my father, Donald W. Gore was murdered in Hartford, Connecticut. He was struck down by five bullets at age forty-seven by a career criminal whose crime credentials included bank robbery, drug dealing and double murder.

In nearly thirty-seven years of advocating for homicide victims, I have witnessed almost every permutation of victimization one can imagine. As a result, to my mind, I have formed an invaluable tapestry of relationships, experience, and hard-fought knowledge about homicide victim advocacy, often via trial and error.

A sizable number of homicide victims have, in their own ways, blossomed into survivors. Survivorship is the crux of the matter, and the goal is to eventually, and however unevenly, forge your new normal existence, and even thrive.

Yes, thrive! It is possible.

As you read each story, emotions may overtake you as you experience stops and starts along the way, as it is visceral for you. Alternately, you may revel in the he/she’s in the same boat as me phenomenon. There is no single way, right or wrong, to approach this collection. Each story was written with heart, and undoubtedly meant to enrich the soul. No doubt you will be moved and comforted by your shared experience.

Being a victim of a homicide crime is a delicate balance. In the beginning, you feel like a sponge soaking in all of the emotions as they come in a flurry. And to be honest, it’s mostly bad. You can’t see the forest for the trees. You may have a blind trust in the system based upon what others have told you, or what you have seen on television. This is especially true if your family has walked the straight and narrow, and you feel you were just a victim of circumstance. I was told by a somewhat arrogant man that I was looking for the magic pill when trying to improve a situation. I know there is no magic pill for anything, but do crime victims know this fresh out of the gate? No. Don’t they need something to believe in? Don’t they need a place to rest their soul, and know that it will be handled with care? Yes!

In bygone years, journalists were supposed to stick to the who, what, where, when why, and how to present a factual account of a journalistic piece. As a survivor of crime, I clearly see that reams of paper and ink are devoted to the who, meaning the perpetrator, and the what with a more than healthy dose of sensationalism, frequently at the expense of crime victims. Victim families are nearly ignored in this process. The grislier, the better for journalism as viewers flock like a feeding frenzy. This leaves victim families feeling like second-class citizens, and a virtual afterthought at best. Like it or not, that’s the way it is.

As homicide survivors, we get so caught up in our own grief that we can’t see the forest for the trees. When the victimization is new and fresh, we feel stripped of all our reserves; we find ourselves questioning humanity, questioning God, and even life itself. We walk in circles, try to make deals with our God or make a pact never to do this or that again, as if we could change the course of our loved one’s plight. Women in particular, are the fix-it people, the ones who hold it together in the family line. Women typically are nurturers and have a lot of love to give. When that nurturing is interrupted by a horrendous life event, the experience can ignite a fiery passion. At least that’s the way it was for me.

I am here to tell you it is okay to celebrate survivorship. However painful, I believe it’s better to share our personal journeys from the very beginning. For to share and educate others is a perpetual way of healing through the rough patches. Given our personal landscapes and unspeakable histories, we yearn to build bridges and make surrogate families with others who share our journey.

When our family homicide occurred in 1981, there was no such thing as support groups for homicide survivors. If you were a widow, if your spouse had a terminal illness, if your loved one perished in an auto accident, these things were covered. But the tragedy menu did not include matters of escalating violence, least of all homicide. Today, we have a world of support that now includes this book. May it bring you the peace your aching heart deserves.

Respectfully Written,

DONNA R. GORE, M. A.

LadyJustice

Host, Shattered Lives Radio

www.DonnaGore.com

BY LYNDA CHELDELIN FELL

Preface

One night in 2007, I had a vivid dream. I was the front passenger in a car and my daughter Aly was sitting behind the driver. Suddenly, the car missed a curve in the road and sailed into a lake. The driver and I escaped the sinking car, but Aly did not. As I bobbed to the surface, I dove again and again in the murky water desperately searching for my daughter. But I failed to find her. She was gone. My beloved daughter was gone, leaving nothing but an open book floating on the water where she disappeared.

Two years later, on August 5, 2009, my nightmare became reality when Aly died as a backseat passenger in a car accident. Returning home from a swim meet, the car carrying Aly was T-boned by a father coming home from work. My beautiful fifteen-year-old daughter took the brunt of the impact and died instantly. She was the only fatality.

Just when I thought life couldn’t get any worse, it did. My dear sweet hubby buried his grief in the sand. He escaped into eighty-hour workweeks, more wine, more food, and less talking. His blood pressure shot up, his cholesterol went off the chart, and the perfect storm arrived on June 4, 2012. Suddenly, he began drooling and couldn’t speak. My 46-year-old soulmate was having a major stroke.

My husband survived the stroke but couldn’t speak, read, or write, and his right side was paralyzed. Still reeling from the loss of our daughter, I found myself again thrust into a fog of grief so thick I couldn’t see through the storm. Adrenaline and autopilot resumed their familiar place at the helm.

Facing what felt like a lifetime of grief, I didn’t think I could endure the agony, and many days I didn’t want to. How could I learn to live with my child in my heart instead of my arms? Would my husband ever be the same? I didn’t know.

As I fought to restore balance to my world, I discovered that helping others was a powerful way to heal my own heart. Grief Diaries was born and built on this belief. By sharing our journeys, our stories become a portable support group for others who share our path. It’s comforting to know others understand our loss language and, more important, have walked in our shoes and survived the journey.

Which brings us to this book. Helen Keller once said, Walking with a friend in the dark is better than walking alone in the light. If you lost a loved one to kidnapping or homicide, the stories you are about to read are written by people who share your path and know how you feel. Although no two journeys are identical, we hope you’ll find comfort in our stories and the understanding that you aren’t truly alone, for we walk ahead, behind, and right beside you.

Wishing you healing and hope from the Grief Diaries village.

Warm regards,

Lynda Cheldelin Fell

CHAPTER ONE

The Beginning

Tears have a wisdom all their own. They come

when a person has relaxed enough to let go

to work through his sorrow. They are the

natural bleeding of an emotional wound,

carrying the poison out of the system.

-F. ALEXANDER MAGOUN

Grief and sorrow are as unique to each individual as his or her fingerprints. In this chapter each writer shares that moment when they lost their loved one to help you understand when life as they knew it ended—and a new one began.

*

KAREN BEAUDIN

Karen’s 13-year-old sister

Kathy was murdered in 1971

My sister Kathy was murdered in the small town of Franklin, New Hampshire. She went missing on November 21, 1971, and was found murdered the following day. Kathy was beaten, raped (possibly multiple times), strangled, and left naked in the woods approximately three miles from our home. Her body was run over multiple times, and her murder is still unsolved. The case was reactivated in 1983, and again in 2004. In 2006, Kathy’s remains were exhumed for DNA testing, but because her grave had been compromised, DNA was unobtainable. After my sister’s murder, I felt misplaced for the longest time. I couldn’t figure out how to have a normal life. What I didn’t realize was my life would never be normal again. Learning to live within that abnormality was crucial. Without guidance from counselors, parents, or siblings, I stumbled along the way. Back then, 1971 was a different era; counselors were not available like they are now. Even with a counselor, the pain would have been the same. It was a long time before I laughed again or didn’t think about her murder every day. Maybe if I’d had a counselor, they could have reassured me that the guilt I felt from my first laugh, or the first day I didn’t think about Kathy, was normal. This guilt was overwhelming, and I grieved her like it had just happened.

The first day I returned to school was dreadful. I felt like an outsider. There were so many firsts that were just painful. The first Thanksgiving, Christmas, and Kathy’s birthday were just a few. But the seconds and thirds were painful, too. I wondered if it would always be that way. My grief came in waves. I told myself to hold on and wait, that it would pass. As time drifted into years, I realized I would always grieve her. Not the way I grieved her in the early years, which was constant with no relief. The waves of grief would come and go. Eventually, I realized it was okay to cry when they did come. Releasing that sorrow was much better than keeping it all inside. I thought the tears were a sign of weakness, of not being able to move on. But they were a sign of love. I would always miss her.

Many years passed before I could give back to those in pain from the torments of murder. Once I could tell Kathy’s story, reach out to others and use my years of experience to encourage law enforcement to never give up on unsolved cases, I began to heal in a different way. I’ve found a way, my way, to honor her. Each of us must find our own way, but we don’t have to do it alone.

*

NICOLA BELISLE

Nicola’s 51-year-old husband Rich

was murdered by a coworker in 2012

My husband, Richard W. Belisle, was an honorable man. He was a man of integrity, a man who always did what was right. He was honest. He was loyal. He was murdered because of these traits. Rich was a chief bosun mate in the United States Coast Guard when he retired after twenty-three exciting and wonderful years. His duty stations included Attu, Alaska, Bahrain (where we met), the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Polar Star which was an ice breaker that took him from Seattle to the Ross Ice Shelf, Australia, Tonga, costal Oregon, and finally Kodiak, Alaska.

Rich retired in lieu of orders, which meant rather than making senior chief and being transferred from Kodiak, Alaska, to Long Beach, California, or Detroit, he got out of the Coast Guard and became a civilian. I had a great job working for an agency that provided services for people with disabilities. Our three girls had been in the Kodiak school system since kindergarten, and the older two, twins, were about to enter middle school. No way were we leaving Kodiak. Kodiak was safe. Kodiak was home.

It was 2003. Rich had a few jobs after retirement: the ship Lazy Bay, a landing craft that delivered supplies to the six isolated villages around Kodiak Island, and Cy’s Sporting Goods selling guns and fishing gear, and telling sea stories every day. Life was good, but with three growing girls and with Kodiak being an expensive place to live, Rich needed a job that paid more.

In 2007, Rich was hired as a Coast Guard civilian employee as a rigger at the communication station in Kodiak. When he explained it to me, he said his job was to climb big communication towers and change the light bulbs at the top. It was a bit more involved than that, but basically he climbed towers ranging in height from one hundred fifty feet to one thousand feet, ensuring their functionality and safety, taking care of the area around them, and training Coast Guard members to climb them safely.

One of Rich’s coworkers, James, was also employed at the station as a tower mechanic. James had also been in the Coast Guard and had been working as a civilian for as long as anyone could remember. Rich spent several years learning from James who was considered the expert, picking his brain, traveling to across the country to train and certify Coast Guard members who had to climb towers, and to inspect and maintain those towers around the country.

In late 2010 to early 2011, things began to change. Rich would come home from work stressed. He wouldn’t say much as he was not one to tell tales out of school, but I knew something at work was bothering him. Eventually, he shared that James was doing things that were unsafe, against regulations, unethical, and just plain wrong. Rich was reporting the issues up the chain of command, but no action was taken. Because officers transfer every two years, with the commanding officer and the executive officer in different years, the command structure changed every year. Every time there was a change of command, James got a clean slate. It’s almost impossible to fire a federal employee.

On April 12, 2012, my husband got up at his usual time, around 6:15 a.m. He made coffee, fed the dogs, and took a shower. After his shower, he brought me coffee and got dressed. He left for work around 6:45 a.m. and I got ready for work. On my way to work, around 7:40 a.m., emergency vehicles screamed past me, and I said a silent prayer for those on the receiving end.

When I got to work, I sent Rich an email telling him that his nine-month-old puppy didn’t eat all his breakfast again, along with some inconsequential things about cleaning the windows at home. He didn’t respond, but that was normal. Just after 9 a.m., I received a text from our youngest daughter, sixteen-year-old Hannah, asking if I had heard about something happening at the communication station, and whether I had heard from Dad. A teacher said the base was in lockdown and a shooting had happened. I called Rich. I texted him. I emailed him. I theorized that he wasn’t at his desk and maybe couldn’t get to the landline phone if something bad was going on. Cellphones didn’t work in his building due to the thick concrete walls.

I continued to call and text him every few minutes. Nothing. I felt sick and was shaking badly. Deep down I kept telling myself Rich was okay, and I was