At the right of the page is this description: Don’t let your pain turn you to stone.
I scroll through the page and start to read the posts. Tales of heartache and sleeplessness and agonizing grief, all from women. All from mothers. A retired high school teacher in Washington, D.C., awakened at three a.m. by a phone call—her only daughter, dead from a fentanyl overdose, administered by a rich druggie boyfriend who subsequently checked into rehab and spent no time behind bars. A nurse from Texas, her unarmed teenage son shot in the back by a man who successfully claimed in court that the boy “was behaving suspiciously” by walking through his neighborhood. A stay-at-home mom from Connecticut, her kindergartner the victim of a hit-and-run driver, never caught . . . Women from Miami and Los Angeles and rural Wyoming and the Boston suburbs, all of them robbed of their children by the actions of others—drunk drivers, incompetent doctors, and, yes, murderers with intent—all of whom, like Harris Blanchard, never got what they deserved. Women trying to accept their losses when their losses are unforgivable, unimaginable, unacceptable . . .
And here’s what I notice: None of these stories are told in the context of time. The deaths could have happened yesterday or last month or twenty years ago; no one specifies how much time has elapsed since the death of their child because they all understand that time doesn’t matter. The hurt’s the same. The wound never heals. The details never fade.
My son was wearing his varsity jacket. He was carrying his gym bag. He cut through that neighborhood coming home from a game. He had a calculus final the next morning. He texted me, asking if there was any ice cream left.
I keep reading as night falls outside my window and the room goes dark and cold. And as I read, I think again about that silver-haired woman—how she and her friend had watched me at the Brayburn event, the hiss of their whispers （had they said, That’s her?）。 I think about how she’d somehow known to find me outside the police station, at the exact moment I left with Luke, before we’d gotten into our cab. I think about how strange that was, yet somehow comforting, too, not so much the actions of a stalker as those of a guardian angel.
Tell your story, the angel tells me, over and over, in the depths of my imagination—that hiss of a whisper. A snake, wrapped around nourishing fruit. Tell your story. You’ll feel better. I guarantee that you will.
I haven’t told my story. Not since five years ago, when I took the witness stand in my ill-advised pencil skirt, the defense lawyer smirking at me, my daughter’s angel-faced, wide-eyed murderer mouthing It’s okay at his weeping mother. I’ve never told the story without being judged for it, and so I’ve promised myself that I’ll never tell it again.
Again, that tempting whisper. This page is no courtroom. These people do not judge. They are people like me.
People like us.
I create a post:
Camille Gardener
January 10 at 1:41 a.m.
I’m ready to tell my story now.
My finger is on the touch pad, my gaze pinned to the screen, to the tiny pointing hand hovering above the post button.
Do it, the angel whispers.
I hold my breath. My finger moves.
Four
NIOBE
MEMBERS: 132 MEMBERS
Description: Don’t let your pain turn you to stone.
Camille Gardener
January 9 at 11:42 p.m.
Hi. My name is Camille, and I live in upstate NY. Thanks for inviting me to join this group.
Seen by 110 people
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30 , 20 10 comments
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Daria Ann （admin）： Welcome, Camille! Do you want to share your story? Niobe is a safe, judgment-free space full of like-minded mothers. Many of us （me included） have given up traditional therapy since sharing here.