The random, unexpected death of a friend
I found out recently that a friend of mine from junior high and beyond was brutally, randomly murdered this week. It was a Monday just before noon, and it happened on the street in Santa Cruz in broad daylight. She was walking down the street from a hair appointment back to the store she's co-owned with her husband Ken for the past 6 years, a sex-positive shop called Camouflage. The man who killed her didn't know her, or anything about her, as far as anyone knows for sure, but as well as I know Shannon, it wouldn't surprise me at all to find out that she'd given him money or food or both in the past few days. She was so positive and happy that it made her fearless, and she's always been that way. When we were as young as 14, she would talk me into doing things that I thought might not be safe, because they sounded like so much fun to her, and her enthusiasm was contagious. We'd go to nightclubs in Rhode Island with sailors from the sub base where both our fathers worked, and she'd dance and laugh and maybe have a drink, completely carefree, while my own fun was tempered with a healthy fear of "getting caught" or of one of the sailors turning out to be not-so-nice a guy. Nothing bad ever did happen though, and we did have fun, so much so that I'm smiling remembering it 25 years later.
In recent years friends of mine who still live in California have told me that Santa Cruz has "gone downhill". When Andrew and I were in school in Monterey in 1992-93, we'd often drive to Santa Cruz to ride the wooden roller coaster on the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk, have some lunch at a local place, and maybe just lay on a blanket in the sand. At that time Santa Cruz was funky and fun, but not off-limits to DLI soldiers/students the way it is now. A friend who has recently taught at DLI told us over dinner on our last trip out there, "Santa Cruz is a dumping ground for the bay area mentally ill, transient, or so-called 'undesirable' people...they are seriously just given a bus ticket to Santa Cruz and sent on their way." He told us that the rationale for that is that Santa Cruz has more services to offer people with these kind of needs, like homeless shelters that allow those who utilize their services to receive social security disability checks.
All of these things culminate in the evil crime that ended the life of one of the most loving, caring people I have known in my life. She was a bright spot in the day of everyone she met, and that light has been extinguished now, and I am grieving for her, for her husband, her parents, all her co-workers and friends...everyone whose life was touched by her positivity. I'm sorry it all ended this way and I don't know that it will even be a catalyst for change, because what change can we make to end randomness? By its nature, it isn't something we prevent...just something we are either lucky enough to avoid, or not, like poor Shannon.
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_20573683/suspect-identified-fatal-stabbing-santa-cruz
In recent years friends of mine who still live in California have told me that Santa Cruz has "gone downhill". When Andrew and I were in school in Monterey in 1992-93, we'd often drive to Santa Cruz to ride the wooden roller coaster on the Santa Cruz beach boardwalk, have some lunch at a local place, and maybe just lay on a blanket in the sand. At that time Santa Cruz was funky and fun, but not off-limits to DLI soldiers/students the way it is now. A friend who has recently taught at DLI told us over dinner on our last trip out there, "Santa Cruz is a dumping ground for the bay area mentally ill, transient, or so-called 'undesirable' people...they are seriously just given a bus ticket to Santa Cruz and sent on their way." He told us that the rationale for that is that Santa Cruz has more services to offer people with these kind of needs, like homeless shelters that allow those who utilize their services to receive social security disability checks.
All of these things culminate in the evil crime that ended the life of one of the most loving, caring people I have known in my life. She was a bright spot in the day of everyone she met, and that light has been extinguished now, and I am grieving for her, for her husband, her parents, all her co-workers and friends...everyone whose life was touched by her positivity. I'm sorry it all ended this way and I don't know that it will even be a catalyst for change, because what change can we make to end randomness? By its nature, it isn't something we prevent...just something we are either lucky enough to avoid, or not, like poor Shannon.
http://www.santacruzsentinel.com/localnews/ci_20573683/suspect-identified-fatal-stabbing-santa-cruz