Every day we hear or read about this murder or that murder. Sometimes it’s a national story, sometimes only local. Most of the time, we take in the story, maybe think to ourselves “how awful” and move on. I am just as prone to think this way. There’s too much of it.
But for me, I can’t get past thinking about the Eliza Fletcher murder. Eliza Fletcher was a runner, a teacher, and mother of two young boys. She was murdered while jogging. It sticks with me because the story is too familiar, too close to my own experience, the murder of my mother. It isn’t just the facts of the case, two relatively young women going about their routine only to be suddenly and brutally attacked. One was attacked while doing laundry, the other taking a daily morning run.
I can’t stop thinking about Eliza’s two little boys. That’s how I experienced crime firsthand, as a little boy. Almost every description I hear and read about Eliza includes the phrase in one form or another, “runner, teacher, mother of two young boys”. It all sounds familiar, “Nancy Zanone, mother of two young children”.
On December 2, 1963, our day began like many others. We awoke. We ate breakfast and got dressed. Later my sister, Laura, went to school while I played at home. It was an ordinary day being lived by ordinary people, repeating a routine we had so many other ordinary days. My sister came home and we played in the back yard, much like we had so many times before. Then, without warning, our routine was shattered, never to return. Unlike Eliza’s two little boys, we witnessed and experienced the immediate aftermath of the attack on our mother. We stood over her as she suffered, screaming in terror. We watched them take her away, never to return.
I wonder about Eliza’s boys’ night before. Just like so many prior nights at sometime they were put to bed. Whether they went willingly, I do not know. Kids sometimes fight bedtime. At some point though, they drifted comfortably to sleep expecting that in the morning they’d wake up to a familiar routine. Mom, dad, breakfast, clothes, and off to their day, much like so many times before. The point at which they realized something was different when they woke up this time or how they reacted, it has not been publicly shared, nor should it. Only one thing is certain. Their mother was nowhere around. Since that day when Eliza was first reported missing, those boys’ lives have been turned upside down. The ordinary life to which they’d become accustomed is gone forever and they are helpless to bring it back.
I don’t know what’s in store for them, how they’ll process what’s happened, or what adjustments they’ll be able to make. Kids are resilient I’m often told and I guess in a way, I’m a testament to it. For years, I panicked when I heard sirens and I hated Mother’s Day. I always felt different beyond the normal childhood insecurities. Yet, I overcame it and have been able to live a fairly blessed life and I can only hope and pray that they too will overcome and good things will be in store for them.
I don’t have any answers to the bigger issues surrounding crime. I just know that when your family is a victim of the murder of a loved one, nothing is ever the same. That helpless feeling Eliza’s boys feel is universal. You never really get over it. So, I keep thinking about those two boys. I hope and pray they have a wide network of support and that people will be there to help them adjust to their new reality with patience, love, and understanding. In the meantime, I can’t stop thinking about those two boys.
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