Justice for Nancy: Can you Hear That, too?
I can still hear my grandma encouraging me to try to shoot the arrow into the trees.
I can still hear her ordering ham salad from Hill’s.
I can still hear her yelling, “Herbie!” & “What in the dickens!?”
I can still hear her telling me over and over, that making sure people had food and personal items meant the world to her.
I can still hear her loving my kids the way she loved me.
I can still hear our conversations about how mentally stable and sound she was, taking care of all her own bills, needs and wants- even at 80.
I can hear her supporting her husband in death, while being berated by a group of crazies and continuing to be strong.
I can hear her own words, pushing herself back in to loving life, after the love of her life passed on.
I can hear the smile in her voice as she tells me about lunch dates with friends, her church, helping her friends out, and loving her new patio.
And…
I can still hear the panic in the voice on the phone telling me my grandma had been brutally attacked.
I can still hear the ringing of my parents phones & hear my heart beating from my chest with worry and terror.
I can still hear the sounds of the emergency room while a group of people who hated each other waited to hear the news, and conversed about the “what ifs.”
I can still hear the sounds from behind the curtain as I walked in to see my grandma sitting in the emergency bay.
I can still hear her voice, begging and pleading for me to tell her why, for the hours I stood alone with her trying to grasp what the fuck was going on.
I can still hear the sounds of her retching and sobbing, while walking me through everything that happened. Over and over every three minutes. Hammering it all into my mind.
I can still hear her gasp as the nurse
pushed her bed down a hall that was under construction and smelled horribly of
paint and chemicals, causing her to need to stop to become ill once more; all
the while crying out for her sight.
I can still hear my mind ripping apart, diving into horrible thoughts and
devious plans as I stood staring at her, in shock.
I can still hear the sounds of the nurses, tiptoe-ing with their words and
trying to be gentle with her and her mindset.
I can still hear her arguing with herself about what she thought she could, and
could no longer see.
I can still hear her talking to the angels she saw surrounding her from hours
after the attack, to years after; and I still hear the naysayers telling her
she was not seeing those things, which upset her so much more.
I can still hear my heart telling me those angels were there to ease her home,
just in their own time.
I can still hear her sadness and depression, and the knowing and understanding
the reality that her life was over.
I can still hear her words in my videos, retelling her side of the attack in
court.
I can still hear my own heart, exploding on the courtroom floor, trying to do my Grandma justice with words, while killing that sonofabitch with my eyes.
I can still hear her response to hearing that he had been convicted and was going to jail for 70 years.
I can still hear her screams of terror that continued and worsened until her death.
I can still hear the sounds of the snowing crunching under my feet at her funeral.
I can still hear her singing to me, “Show me the way to go home…”
…and that is where I lose it.
Every. Time.
I have never been one to shy away from the life changing feelings, trust issues and everything this violent crime has left me with and broken in our lives. I never speak for others involved, but today has proven difficult for many of us. Learning that the very guilty criminal Zach Doan has been charged with the murder of another older gentleman in Fort Wayne in 2012, before my Grandma was attacked, has brought every word, every moment, every newspaper article and every STUPID comment from the peanut gallery back to the surface. Further proof that while we as humans do adjust to living with these feelings and truths of life, they never, ever truly leave us.
Reading the newspaper article on the write up of his newly accused crime, it felt like a minimization of my Grandma’s wounds from the attack. This may have infuriated me more than anything else! It wasn’t JUST a broken nose or eye socket, and she didn’t JUST lose her sight. They left out all of the parts I remember seeing and hearing, dealing with and being permanently changed because of. They left out HER reality and truth, which is, Zach Doan essentially beat her to death and stole her life for the few bucks she wouldn’t give him, making him (in my eyes) an almost-twice convicted murderer. It saddens me to think about the what if’s, and if those witnesses and his friends that knew of this crime would have come forward, I may be able to sit next to my Grandma today, not next to her graveside. That poor family of his “first” victim (although, I am sure there are dozens of others…) have lived years without closure, and without knowing the face of their family members’ killer.
Now I wonder how strongly his family feels about all those things they stood up and said about their son, brother, and friend that day in court. Turns out he really wasn’t ever a good guy, never has been and seems to use his size as a weapon and attempts to kill for sport. I wonder how they can still support him, knowing he has no regard for any life, except his own. I wonder if they’d still trust him with their children, and if they still visit him regularly. I wonder if they get joy in posting comments on social media outlets that STILL say he is innocent, and I wonder just what he would have to do to make them see how much evil rests inside of him. I wonder, if when they read his quotes about listening to skulls crack and blood being everywhere, if they are just okay with, and pray about that.
Now I can hear his prison cell walls closing in, and I hope the floor and ceiling converge on him, too.
I can hear his uneducated, tiny brain trying to convince himself what he did was cool.
I can hear those inmates he’s told his deepest secrets to, thinking he’s showing off and gaining jail cred, running to the warden to make a deal and throw his big, humanly-challenged ass under whatever prison bus is closest.
I can hear Karma knocking on his ear drums and giving him a slight taste of the intense mental anguish many of us have faced for years.
I can hear my Grandma and Mr. Shimer following him everywhere he goes, silently speaking their truths into his demonic ears, and I know that will continue until his end of his days.
And when he goes deaf from his own thoughts blaring in his ears, and the words of all of his victims pumping through his mind start to go unheard, I’ll still be hear writing it all down, typing it up, and publishing the TRUTH so that Nancy’s truth and story will ALWAYS be heard.
Can you hear that, too? That strong, resonating sound of Justice & Truth? Because it’s pretty loud today.