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I made three journal entries yesterday, on the way to Mississippi.
They need to be sorted, one to take the day and two to go into Cold Storage.
In them I pretty much avoid the topic of why we are making the journey.
Today is the day I have to deal with it.
As I write, the funeral service is over, and we are on the way to the gravesite. It's a drive of a couple hours, no formal procession. The infrastructure of this part of the state makes it well nigh impossible. There were a lot of people at the service. I come from an enormous family, blood kin and blended families and such. Lyddie didn't look right. Most folks look peaceful lying in their coffins. Maybe it's just me, but she looked troubled, like something were not quite right. The media were there, but they stayed outside. Tons of her classmates were there, and people from her church and neighborhood. She had a lotta friends. The road is too rough. I can't write like this. Will pick it up later. It's eleven at night and I am beat. I am sitting here thinking what to write, and it's hard, partly because there is so much to say, and partly because my thoughts don't flow as readily from pen to paper as through the keyboard. It may take several installments to get the story told, as it goes back much further than the shooting. The shooting. Yes, I suppose this is a good place to start. Though I am working on hearsay, and can't vouch for the validity of some of this, here is what happened, far as I know. Lyddie regularly went to school early for some kind of study time. She was there with her friend. Earlier that morning, the boy in question cut his mother's throat, killing her. Then he wrote a note explaining his intentions and took a gun to school. There he found his ex-girlfriend, Lyddie's friend, and shot her in the neck. Lyddie ran to help her and he shot her as well. He fired on some others before one of the teachers got out to the parking lot to get his own gun and returned to pin the boy. At first it looked like Lydia had just a minor wound on the arm. The lethal wound, the one in her back, wasn't visible as she lay. She died in a teacher's arms. I am guessing that this is the same woman I saw at the funeral, who said she prayed with Lydia, and that Lyddie remained coherent long enough to pray along. The boy is charged with three counts of murder and several of aggravated assault. |