For Lia

I am feeling a bit ill at ease this morning and I am wondering if writing will help.
And in doing so, maybe I will help someone else.
After all, I think the purpose we humans are here for is to keep the species going, growing, learning and hopefully, evolving into a higher life form.
One way we guide others of our species to do that.... is by sharing, information, knowledge, warnings, recollections, wisdom.
I also know none of us are here forever.
Sometimes our individual missions on planet earth are long.
Sometimes, shockingly short.

And that brings me to today's blog.

Whatever I write will be brief, because a rare day beckons.
I have this empty palette of time on which I can paint any word pictures in my head I choose.
I have freedom of  speech, though I am cautious expressing it.
I want to bring no harm, simply decompress slowly... so I, and others... can process all this.
 
Today's verbal picture is underwater.
There is a blond girl there.
I have known her since she was so young, when I first moved to Seattle. She is a little older than my kids.
She is a rarity.
Not only in her beauty, intelligence, grace, emotional consistency,  kindness... she is a unique in her wisdom and willingness to give and share love.

Hers is a rare, sparking, gem-like beauty.  An all-American beauty.
She was very good girl.
And she was a triplet!
She had another brother and sister, they all hung out in the same womb.
There was also an older birth brother...
and two more brothers that came with a co-joined family.
One of my best friends was her second mom.
So whevenever we celebrated an occasion (and there were many) it was always together and there were six kids guaranteed.
All the kids are beautiful and perfect externally.
Internally, like all kids, they all had wild spirits that were kept well tamed.
They are the kind of children who could rock the planet with peace and harmony if given the opportunity.

Add two new kids....mine... plus extended family.... and the years filled with  massive kids growing older through years of memories: summers at the beach, falls and winters full of family celebrations, springs with huge birthday parties for sometimes 9, 10 people at a time.

All of these people I am telling you about.... they are the family I found when I moved to the Pacific N.W. from L.A. California.
They are the non blood family who found me, or I found them.... when my birth family found other places in the US to settle down. Some on the southeast coast, some northeast, some in California some in Oregon.
Yet the family I described earlier, my Pacific Northwest family... is one I see more than my own blood family.

So now I will get to the point.
One member of that family, one of the triplets, was first reported missing and found dead towards the end of October.
I just found out about this a whole month later. A few days ago to be exact.
This distresses me to no end.
To not have even known she was missing.
And then to have not known she was found the second day she was reported missing.

She had been working on a boat in a Ballard Marina, she was found dead underneath the boat during the second dive search on the second day.
When I was told this, by one my my best friends, my friend was mortified and apologetic she never called and told me it was happening. However, she was in the thick of the things, first the locations, then recovery and funeral phase.
She said she figured I watched the news, read the papers, everyone was talking about it.
I was mortified too because she was right...  I listen to the radio when I drive to cases. I see and hear amber alerts,
Though I somehow missed this.

I heard nothing about it until a few days ago.
Dear Lia has been dead one month now.
She hit her head... or perhaps someone hit it.... I don't know.
And, from what I have heard, it was her siblings.... and I believe her boyfriend... who were at the boat when the divers surfaced with her body from beneath it.
They did the I.D.
When the story was told to me.... and  I heard the words "fracture to the skull, found floating under the boat,...."  I instinctively exhaled until all the air left my lungs.
With my next breath came a memory of our last conversation when she showed up at a party months earlier.
Then I pictured her floating under the sea.
And I thought of the triplets losing their third.
And the brothers losing a sister.
And mothers and fathers losing a daughter.
And scuba divers searching the murkey depths and ultimately discovering a young woman two days submerged.
Rescue divers, Police, Paramedics, Tow Truck Drivers, First Responders....they have children too.

I am writing this blog today not because I want to.
It's because I must.
It is.... after all.... Thanksgiving weekend.
We spent Thanksgiving dinner last night at the home of  those friends, not Lia's immediate family, but the one Lia's immediately family co-mingled with.
The boys there were her brothers, not in blood.... in spirit, in life.
And now, also in death.
One of her brothers, told me his best friend also just died.
Never smoked, used drugs. Diagnosed with cancer and dead in 3 months.
Other stories trickled out of young mouths that were never meant to be known or said in kids so young.
I guess television, movies, life has changed all that.
However, I can't get Lia's image just floating in that cold sea out of my head.
Her other brother said the same thing to me.
"Me too. I can't sleep, I can't stop thinking about it."
The depths of her death are unfathomable, literally and figuratively.

Because this is the Diary of a Private Eye and therefore, claims truth...
I have decided to link you with Lia's story.
My friend wrote her obituary and has also allowed me to post it along with her picture.
I am doing this so you will say a prayer for Lia's spirit because I think she will hear it.
And with every prayer said...
maybe one pain will heal.

Just as tears were were shed last night over Thanksgiving dinner....
we spoke of how bad it was to have gone through....
yet how, at least, we know where Lia is...... that she was not abducted, or missing, dead, or held captive for years.
And I marveled quietly in realizing how incredible it is.... that people can still find positive points to tragedies.
Today, as you read this....whoever you are....hug the one you love a little longer.
Be a little kinder today.
Make that hug, or phone call, linger just a little longer.
If not for yourself, do it for Lia.
Let the lesson of Lia's loss not be lost on you.
It's how she would have wanted to be remembered.

Here's a link to the media story:
http://www.myballard.com/2010/10/25/lia-hawkins-death-ruled-accidental/