Golden State Killer - Day 114 - Daily Haiku - part 1
Golden State Killer
so many young lives destroyed
I forgive it all
Cori MacNaughton
Growing up in California was, in some ways, an idyllic life, as my family lived in a safe neighborhood, we were maybe an hour from the beach with traffic, and we could see snow capped Mount Baldy, in the San Gabriel Mountains, from our front yard. Our neighborhood, and the Los Angeles area in general, is still full of natural beauty.
We had far more sunshine than rain, it rarely got really cold and almost never even approached freezing, our house on the hill was usually above the worst of the smog, and as the end house on a cul-de-sac, we spent our afternoons playing in our pie-shaped back yard, which dropped off into the canyon below.
My mom was an organic gardener back before anyone even thought to call it that, we had a huge compost pile in the back yard, along with numerous fruit trees, a couple of massive Globe artichoke bushes, and along with our dogs and cat, a succession of rabbits and guinea pigs to keep us company and share our most personal secrets. My mom even kept a large strawberry patch that the neighborhood kids knew they were welcome to come pillage at will.
But there was a dark side to growing up in the late 60s and early 70s, and it came in the form of a succession of sensational stories, which our parents tried their best to downplay, but which filtered down to us kids all the same.
The Tate - LaBianca murders, better known outside California as the Manson Family murders, were a home town story for us, not nearly far enough from where we lived for our parents to feel safe, and we kids postulated our own theories based on the snippets we heard in conversations and the evening news.
Although it wouldn't be accurate to say we lived in constant fear, because we kept on living our lives in spite of the killings, but no one felt immune. It was under the surface of just about everyone's conscious thoughts.
I remember distinctly riding my bike around in circles, at the end of our cul-de-sac, and wondering to myself whether the Zodiac Killer would turn up in our neighborhood. I was a kid, but I was smart enough to know even then that you could drive from one end of California to the other in about twelve to fourteen hours. We were accessible.
Years later, when I was in college and my mom and I were living in Santa Monica, and I went to spend the weekend with a girlfriend of mine who was attending a girls college in Santa Barbara, a couple of hours north on the Coast. No dogs were allowed, so I left my Newfoundland at home, and although I told my mom where I was going, there were no phones in the dorm rooms, so she had no way to contact me, and I wouldn't be able to call her until I left to return home.
Naturally, that was the weekend that the Hillside Strangler's next-to-last victim was found, who of course matched my description perfectly. And I was incommunicado. Needless to say, my mom was a wreck, and I knew nothing about it. We didn't turn on the news even once the whole weekend.
By the time I got home, my mom, who kept her cool where few others would, calmly informed me that she had signed me up for a self defense course at Cal State University L.A. the following weekend. And it was a GREAT class, that I was very thankful to have taken, and even more thankful that I was never put in the position of having to use what I learned there. And the confidence I learned in that class may well have helped in making me less desirable as a victim, as I was clearly and obviously paying attention to my surroundings, and not going to go down without a fight.
Which brings me to the Golden State Killer. I was reading an article about the woman who wrote the bestselling book about his rape-and-murder spree, and a gentleman who was an ex-cop obsessed with the crimes, who was convinced that he killed everyone from the Black Dahlia forward.
And, literally a day or two after I read the article, police announced that they had caught him.
So how could I forgive such heinous crimes? Easy. For one thing, one of the most inspiring stories I ever came across was a woman whose daughter had been murdered (in an unrelated crime), who, despite her grief, gathered her family around her, and requested that they accompany her to visit the killer in prison and forgive him for what he had done.
She was a staunch Catholic, and since Jesus said that we are to forgive our enemies, and not to take revenge, she felt that it was the right thing to do, and so that's what she did. With her family in tow, she visited her daughter's murderer in prison, looked him in the eyes, and forgave him from her heart.
And the man broke down sobbing, begging for the forgiveness she had already freely given, upon which the guards allowed them to embrace. And they held each other for a long while.
According to the author of the story, everyone in that room was changed that day, which I totally believe. She came from a place of selfless love, and when people come from that place, they - and we - can change the world.
To be continued.
(Sorry - it's late, and I have to get up early tomorrow.)
And I would love to hear your take in the comments.
To Write a Haiku - Day 112 - Daily Haiku - Photography
Cinco de Mayo - Day 111 - Daily Haiku - architecturalphotography
Six Years in This Place - Day 110 - Daily Haiku - Smartphone Photography
Feeling the Essence - Day 109 - Daily Haiku - Smartphone Photography
I Am So Grateful - Day 108 - Daily Haiku - Smartphone Photography
Sitting by the Fire - Day 107 - Daily Haiku - Smartphone Photography
Remember Always - Day 106 - Daily Haiku - Smartphone Photography
Spring Flowers Are Here - Day 105 - Daily Haiku - Landscape Photography on our farm
Only in the South - Day 104 - Daily Haiku - Original Photography, funny
Moon is Nearly Full - Day 103 - Daily Haiku - Night Landscape Photography
If you feel my posts are undervalued, and/or you want to
donate to tip me, I would appreciate it very much.
In the process, you will be helping our small organic farm to operate,
to help others, and to feed and house all our animals better. Thank you!
Bitcoin (BTC) – 37Z9UabFyygFYXMoChifdCkyFgPJtKwXRj
Bitcoin Cash (BCH) – qq5p7dkr9239u6fer98lyc3cjvhcwcggzuxyde9mjp
Ethereum (ETH) - 0x731e363a4e6C680D47aFA63e4620342964a9d0Fb
LiteCoin (LTC) – MprMcJSAXKvtBouDQRSSk85qbms8ak3xDY
The following are a few affiliate links, to companies we really
believe in, that will further help us to operate, to help others,
and to care for and feed our animals.
If you have any interest in becoming affiliated with these companies,
which may bring you additional income, please contact me,
and perhaps we can work together!
Dr. Al Sears, well known anti-aging doctor, with his first-class
line of supplements that actually work:
https://primalforce.net/?aff=1893
Melaleuca, a company that has been making natural, eco-friendly
products since the 1980s, that not only work as well as
chemically laden versions from the supermarket,
but are safer, and typically save money overall in addition.
I was introduced to them by a co-worker in 1990, lost track
of them, and was thrilled to find them again about a year
and a half ago. I strongly recommend their products.
http://www.melaleuca.com/corimacnaughton
Prime My Body offers a nanoenhanced hemp-based CBD oil
that is legal in all 50 United States, and clinically proven to be
absorbed 3X better than the leading pharmaceutical brand.
I have used it on myself and my animals with excellent results.
https://Crescendo.primemybody.com
If you are interested in becoming an affiliate yourself,
check out this link:
https://enrollpmb.com/Crescendo
All words and images are my own.
I took the image of our lovely but invasive Chinese rose a few days ago using my Samsung Galaxy Note 8 smart phone.
The photo of our dog, Lolo, and our late cat, Miod, I took as they were cooperatively begging at the dinner table, despite our longstanding rule of not feeding them from the table.
You can see how much that deterred them both.
Resteeming is welcome, you may link to my post from your own website or blog, and you may use excerpts and/or images as long as you credit me, and link back to this post.
Please ask for permission, before using my work otherwise, as all rights are reserved.
Wow!
That mother is a far better Catholic than I'll ever be. (Married into the Church and gave Pascal's Wager not just one year, but 20 years, and finally resigned myself to being the heretic and skeptic I'm apparently hard-wired to be, and just, don't, get me started on this.)
Forgive my sister's killer? Dave Hoing (novelist) said his sister asked him to go with her to forgive T-Bone Taylor for killing their brother, a police officer, but Dave said nope, I don't feel forgiveness for him, or anything else. It took me some time to grasp what Dave was describing, but I now know, because I finally reached that state after an exhaustive effort to unmask my sister's killer(s). I don't seek revenge or public execution, but public embarrassment, and loss of the community's reverence for this pastor who claims to be Born Again. Thanks for the haiku, Cori, and the of course (you're so clairvoyant, or intuitive!) connection of thinking about the Golden State Killer only to hear the next day that he's been found. I wanna know how this works... this intuition... why some have it, others not at all, and what frame of mind or condition of the soul helps facilitate these insights.
Well, there's another long reply! You and I....
I can't claim great clairvoyance on this one, the story just happened to come across my feed, but that said, I don't believe in coincidence. Everything happens for a reason.
I actually considered converting to Catholicism at one point, as I was dating and considering marrying a man who was a devout Catholic, but ultimately said no to both.
As a teen, I considered converting to Judaism, but after a number of conversations with a local rabbi, chose against that as well.
But I was raised Episcopalian, which as Robin Williams so aptly said, is Catholic Light: "Same religion; half the guilt!" And, ultimately, came to much the same conclusion that you did.
I am spiritual, but have come to consider organized religion to be largely a fraud I can do without, particularly since the vast majority don't even come close to practicing what they preach.
And, having been raised in an international community, with a dad who became a Buddhist when I was twelve, I've taken truths from a number of faiths, and don't consider myself to be a member of any of them.
When I took an online survey on religious beliefs, I came out as essentially a Judeo-Christian Buddhist with Hindu and Native American leanings. So in matters of faith I can best be described as eclectic. ;-)