Dear Betsy...

In the year since your murder I've come to understand a few things about death. Until then, death had always been something unreal and removed from my life. I had never owned grief. I believed it belonged to other people -- people closer or more important than me. I never felt I had the right to feel that kind of loss.

But suddenly there it was, foisted upon me. And I've been living with it since. Though I'm still not sure this grief belongs to me or what I should do with it.

This grief for your death will not go away. I shouldn't expect it to. Though it still surprises me from time to time. There are times when I think I see you -- on the train, or walking down the street. I just expect that I'll bump into you one day like nothing happened and we'll just catch up with eachother. Because the thing about living in the wake of a murder is that one cannot get over the feeling that the victim should be here. It wasn't an accident, nor was it illness -- it was a deliberate act made by one human being against another. Someone else decided. Thus the cold fact of death is harder to rationalize. The process of reaching acceptance becomes more difficult. Closure indefinite.

So Betsy, you should be here. You should be here. You should see how valuable you are, how loved you are. You should be laughing with us. You should be sharing your wit and gentleness. For me to accept that you cannot is to believe that an unforgivable evil exists -- an evil that succeeded in extinguishing one of the brightest stars in our sky.

You should know that your death brought with it some unexpected gifts. The most important one being that the money raised in your name will help victims of domestic violence. The other gifts are immeasurable and unnamable but lasting. I will not take life for granted. And I will never again sit by and watch someone live in a dangerous situation. I will tell them about you. I'll tell them about what I imagine your last moments were like. No one should die like that. Not when it could be prevented.

My wish for you to be here is a selfish one. It is selfish because I can no longer bear to be haunted by your memory. Because I want to tell you that I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I worked you too hard and took you for granted. I'm sorry that I didn't do more to help you. I'm sorry that your death was so brutal and undeserved. I'm sorry that I'm writing this. I'm sorry that I still don't feel that I own this grief.