Dearest Morgan,

Sorry to be despondent, but this bleak gray month of February has nested in like a boulder, cold, hard, and immobile. I am struggling. Yearning for release from our challenging reality, but bound.

I am tied to the world by obligation: to you and your legacy, to solving your brutal murder, to holding up Dan and Alex through this obscene desecration. I am bound here by frantic canine scratching at the door, brown eyes at food bowl, bushels of dirty laundry cascading like yeasted dough from the hamper. These implied promises hold me fast.  I am at core a doer, a worker. I cannot turn aside when duty calls.

It is tempting though. It would be so fine, so easy to let go, to float away. Is this the ultimate power of gravity/sorrow? It holds us here with tethers of love and obligation. Would that the strands might fray, separate, perhaps release, because the tie so often chafes.

We need some magic here Morgan. An arrest would mean a rest. Bring it on. Please?

Always, 241, Mama

The Morgan Harrington Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine Scholarship
OMNI School Building in Zambia
Help Save The Next Girl Foundation
Familial DNA testing in Virginia

Reviewing those accomplishments usually does the trick and stops my slide into self pity and sadness; but acceptance is hard to sustain. I also have a mental surrender ritual that can sometimes help. I relinquish it all, every part of Morgan I can remember:
Starting with the glorious/alien feeling of Morgan squirming in my belly as she quickened; the baby powder/soap/milky infant smell; toddler starfish fingers clasping fat crayons; school age anxt over mastering the big 2 wheeler bike – soon replaced by 16 year old jitters about driving; and moving away to college, so excited to be independent and proud of your first, and last, apartment.

Then I keep going. I relinquish all the Morgan we didn’t get to have. The flowering of Morgan into adulthood – spouse – children – career; I turn loose of it all, every smidge. And I am empty, but now calm, and that’s a good place; a nice compromise with grief. Next, I fill the empty with busy. Much to accomplish; I must get productive.

This strategy works 90% of the time, until my little determined house of cards is jostled by something, like an anniversary. Three years since your body was found. Then I wobble and go right back down the rabbit hole of anguish. Why Morgan?  How could he?  Did she suffer?  How long?  Was she scared, or did the mercy of oblivion come quickly? The nightmare chorus never ends.

I don’t want Morgan photos, or Morgan legacy. I want the REAL, breathing, flesh Morgan here – again. I know. It can never be.

Like Morgan’s childhood 2 wheeler bike ride, I wobble and fall and end up at the beginning, back in the hole of grief. With time it has gotten easier to get up and try again. Looking out at our bird feeder in today’s snow: scarlet flash of cardinal feeding; I see the bird, not spurt of blood. I am grateful.

Wobbly though it is, this is growth.

Always,
241

We realized soon after Morgan’s murder that holidays would be tricky ground to navigate for our shrunken/triangulated family. Old traditions had to be jettisoned, too painful, and new traditions must be developed.

Our new Christmas traditions involve many firmly closed Christmas boxes. Some of those boxes are memory boxes that we force the lid on to prevent self-injury. Like: I won’t think about the elaborate Christmas rituals that Morgan and Alex invented as children. They not only put out cookies and milk for Santa, but also placed carrots on the front lawn for his reindeer. Dan didn’t mind standing in for Santa and munching the cookies, but honestly I know Dan didn’t love searching the yard with flash lights Christmas eve to locate and nibble the reindeer’s carrots.  Nope, won’t open that box.

Some of our closed Christmas boxes are actual boxes – like the box of ornaments in the basement. Can’t bear to see all the kid crafted decorations; though one in particular keeps popping into my head. Probably in 2^nd or 3^rd grade, Morgan came home proudly presenting the ornament she had made in class. I t was actually sort of hideous. A flattened pop can sprayed with gold and given a shake of glitter as adornment. Every year thereafter I tried to position the darn thing on the very back of the tree to hide its garish awfulness. Inevitably Morgan would seek it out and place it front and center on the tree for all to admire. Definitely must keep the lid on the ornament box.

In fact we don’t even fill Christmas boxes with presents anymore. I use bags instead. See, I am a hasty/ sloppy present wrapper. Morgan took over that task long ago and loved to tie each bow precisely and decorate all the packages like works of art. I just cannot replay that scene. So now all gifts are placed in bags. Another shift in tradition that allows us to skate through this emotionally charged time of year.

I have to think that Morgan, our beautiful shiny out of the box girl, helps us somehow traverse these rough stretches. We are not unscathed by the holidays. Predictably we become a little raw around the edges. Yes, raw, diminished but still whole and moving forward. Raw, but still permeable to the joy of this season of giving. Raw, but so grateful for the time we had with Morgan our precious little girl now placed in yet another  closed box.

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Gil – had the thrill of touring the completed Morgan Dana Harrington Education Wing at the OMNI compound in Ndola, Zambia during the July OMNI medical team trip to Africa. So fine to see classrooms and kids at desks learning because of you. Morgan you cannot travel, but your legacy of service and early education prevail regardless. Morgan you have created positive change in the world. Your life mattered.

Alex – is so busy, but managing to successfully juggle the challenge of international travel as well as the chaos of New York City in his hectic career in fashion with Vogue.

Morgan – three years out and your homicide remains unsolved – it is well nigh time for justice. The razor edge of loss still cuts. Most days we are able to move forward regardless.

Kirby – is just wiggy, beyond description or explanation. Kirby cycles beween aggression and sweetness in mere seconds. Face it, the dog has “issues” bue we cope and love him in spite of his many failings.

Autopsy Report

Which seat do you choose?  Among all the comfortable chairs in this house, which one is the right one to support me as I open and read the Medical Examiner’s autopsy report for our slain daughter, Morgan Dana Harrington?

It is a thick envelope.  The kids always said a fat envelop was a good sign; typically meaning something positive, like an acceptance to college. Thick or pancake flat envelope makes no difference in this missive; it is all bad news.  It is stupid of me to be so avoidant of this written document.  I have seen the damage, felt the bones, smelled the rot.  Still to experience the objectivity and scientific analysis inherent in the autopsy report is going to be so disturbing.  She wasn’t a 20 year old white female, 5feet7 inches……  She was Morgan, our baby girl with shiny hair, flashing eyes and such sweet silky soft skin.  How could he have ended all that?  I will never understand the evil, the cruelty of this killer

As time passes, Morgan, I feel mounting urgency about other young women that may fall in this predator’s path.  I feel his blood lust growing and am frantic in my determination to Help Save the Next Girl.

Morgan, your papa and I are tired but remain steadfast in our search for your killer.  We work diligently also to change the culture of complacency and complicity that accepts violence against young women as status quo or incidental occurrences.  That indifference must be shifted. I refuse to accept the false premise that these lives don’t matter.  You surely did.

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Love Mama

Morgan, my sweet girl, I am not loving the mall just now; see, its “back to school” time at the mall. Remember “back to school”, back before you were dead?

It is a time of new beginnings, and hope, and a passel of jitters thrown in besides.  Back to school shopping for the perfect binder; reams of papers, fistfuls of sharpies and pens. You loved to put your binder together and make a plan to attack the new academic year.  Remember the flurry of heavy telephone conferences to discuss and debate with all your friends “What to wear the first day? Is it ok to pack your lunch or does that look nerdy? Maybe it is better to buy from the cafeteria?  Did you get the “good” math teacher? Where in heck are all the different classrooms?”

Lockers – that was a big stressor when you entered middle school.  Could you manage to work the combination lock? We even went covertly to the school building a couple of days before class started (very nerdy) with WD-40 to grease up the lock. We practiced and practiced your combination until the lock sprang open in your palm effortlessly.

Morgan, you were always both anxious and thrilled to start classes again in the fall.  You loved all the possibilities and promise of a new beginning that back to school implied.  Tragically, all over for us now, no promise, no hope, no beginning, just your end.  That’s why I have to stay away from the mall for a bit.

2 4 1

Mama

Pondering the Ocean

Fate has delivered us an immutable roadblock.  I can sit here for the rest of my days and stew over why I cannot have the life I had anticipated, or I can detour and find a new way, even prosper by so doing.  It is a choice; switch of perspective.  You can feel like a “whack a mole game” or you can decide to feel like a blade that is being honed to strike for good.

Morgan, your death has caused me to strengthen my spiritual struts, to reaffirm my thoughts and cognition. This hideous murder has forced us to change.  We attempt to use the loss and pain to break through and awaken.  I am learning how to deal with this sad, messy, unsanitized life. Love it all.  That is the difficult but necessary response.

Relinquish old expectations, secure in the belief that love always shows up.  Pain can serve as a vehicle that allows for love’s transformation.  I see the lesson in the sandy beach of the Outerbanks.  The beautiful sand and undulating dunes are actually a compilation of massive destruction. So many individual shells pummeled and pounded until at some point they no longer resemble conch, clam or scallop but leave behind a singular identity and become beach. A mysterious process as redemption follows demolition.  I accept the lesson; even in the face of the ultimate challenge of your hideous death, Morgan. Life, growth and love are coming around again.

241

Love Mama

Dearest Mogo,

Papa and I are with the crew at the beach.  It is particularly hard on Dan to be here without you as his special wave jumping water buddy. This was always a magical time of bonding for you and Papa. Laughing and splashing in the surf; both gleeful and childlike in those shared salty, sandy moments. So fleeting that joy.  The membrane to earlier times and to the magnitude of our loss is more permeable in this place. We feel the empty space more; even seek it out; like you search the arch of the mandible with your tongue probing vacant space for the missing tooth.

Morgan we miss you like crazy; always will, but we are trying so hard to create something positive and grow, even in our sorrow.  The gash, the wound has begun to granulate but the protection of scar has not yet formed. We still feel pretty raw much of the time.  Folks say, “I don’t know how you can survive this!”  Well here it is, my insight on how to cope with catastrophic loss:  “I’ll have my breakdown just as soon as I get this load of towels out of the dryer – repeat as necessary”.

Morgan, so we soldier on, holding fast to the belief; like you clung tightly to your float in this turbulent North Carolina ocean, that the sorrow and pain of loss is mitigated by the promise of rebirth and transformation.  The inevitable and ever malignant death is actually the means which allows spirit to rise. We are open to transformation, knowing that love abides.

2 4 1

Mama

It is infinitely precious for me to translate the scratchy marks you made on that board next to the closet. Naturally the top mark is Dan, tall papa, rock of our family. I remember each and every notation on the wood. How excited you were when you were “officially” taller than me – 3/01. You were 12. As a little girl you were amazed to see the mark that showed “ how big I was when I got borned.”7/24/89 you were 19 ½ inches long. The lowest marks near the ground are really hilarious, where you kept the pet record. I smile to see that our kitten Zeb was 7 inches tall on 9/92. I recall the difficulty your 3 year old self had taking that measurement; though it was not nearly as hard as making your parakeet Opal sit still long enough to be recorded on 4/99.

For the record Morgan, you have shrunk to a dimension of 10x10x4; the size of the cigar box where you now reside.

Memories permeate the marks you inscribed in the wood grain of your grow stick. Contemplating it is bittersweet but the sadness is tolerable because we had much fun with the silliness of the task. What is still excruciating beyond bearing is the flip side of the board. That’s where you planned to chart the growth of your own children, your anticipated family. Those beloveds who will never exist were also stolen from us. The unmarked and forever empty expanse of wood on the flip side is invisibly inscribed with pain, a virtual Rosetta Stone of loss.

In the midst of agony Morgan, your family chooses strength. We choose survival. We choose love. Wecontinue to choose, insist upon, and embrace growth.
Always, 241, Mama

Our daily landscape is a minefield riddled with objects/thoughts/words that unleash memories which quickly plunge into emotions and grief. Photos displayed around the house that used to comfort now sometimes lash. I catch sight of your beautiful face and smile and quickly try to shake off the horrific mental hologram that seeks to superimpose images of your gap toothed skull. I look at a picture on the fridge and stop myself from the gruesome calendar math inherent in the image. I try not to calculate how many days you had left to live in each and every scene.

We have grown some of the muscles that surviving loss demands. We navigate the tough places and hold feelings in check. Just when I think I have successfully walled off the no longer possible life, I see Dan weeping over wedding dresses shown on TV. Not our path now. So much anticipated joy surrendered. On Easter, there will be no Peeps here. A ridiculous and silly thing to miss, I know, but it is another little whiff of fun we have had to dismiss. Morgan, you thought that Peeps were hilarious: the Easter equivalent of fruitcake, always present and yet never consumed. And so they were a funny inclusion in every Easter basket I ever assembled – another task that is no longer mine to do.

I am grateful that it is easier to hold these feelings in check than it was a year ago. Morgan, our life is not so sharp and fraught with pain. We are making it. Feels sort of like we have moved from walking on shards of glass to merely walking on eggshells. Still a tricky path to navigate and one I so much wish we didn’t have to walk. We miss you always and mourn the loss of joy.

241
Mom