A Monster in Our Midst

The Reds and I have just returned from dropping cookies and a "Welcome Home" note to our newest neighbours. They moved in last week and while I'm ashamed that it's taken me this long to get over, I hope that they'll appreciate the gesture and the friendly overture, nonetheless.

Because this city needs friendly gestures more than any place in the country right now, frozen as we are at the horror unfolding in our courthouse, a monster in our midst.

I live in Belleville, Ontario.

A few blocks from my home, Col. Russell Williams sits - slumps actually, according to a real-time local news feed - as the details of his appalling reign of terror are laid out for all to know. Deflated and silent, the monster behind the military mask awaits his fate while spectators cringe and gasp, repulsed.

As I type this, frantically trying to keep my agonized imaginings in check, reporters and journalists from across the country have gathered here in "The Friendly City" and are rapidly "tweeting" and updating a rapt but shaken public - we are seeing, almost alongside the family and friends of Belleville's lost daughters, the work of a psychopath in all his glory.

Never did I imagine that the monster was this depraved, this appalling, this...evil.

 Living here, on the beautiful Bay of Quinte, it seems that I've allowed myself to forget the unease and uncertainty that plagued this city following Jessica Lloyd's disappearance. I've played down the shock of Williams' capture and let slip from memory my sense of shattered peace that the Soldier had made my city his hunting ground.

But today, like yesterday, I feel compelled to read everything I can about the court proceedings following his "Guilty" pleas. (Close to 100 separate charges. Holy hell, the Devil was a busy boy, indeed.)

I am drawn to the angst and the surreal-ness of this reality while at the same time, I want to turn away and "unknow" everything I never imagined possible. I am left reeling and sickened by a photographic collection of stolen panties - his modelling of them - and can't imagine that I'll sleep well tonight.

Then again, I can't conceive that Jessica's Lloyd's mother will ever sleep again, period. Not without envisioning her daughter's last hours, in the hands of a madman.

Do Marie-France Comeau's parents feel a swelling pride that their beautiful daughter fought so hard and so well for her life? I felt an urge to pump my fist in the air when I read of her attempts to outwit and and outmaneuver the Colonel - her Colonel. Felt doubly saddened when I "remembered" that in the end, she too died at his hand.

*A memory of that same sensation whispers through my mind. I felt the same way almost twenty years ago when the world learned about Paul Bernardo and the terrible things he did to Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffey. A few years later, I read a book about the infamous case: for several chapters, it seemed as though Kristen French stood a chance of release, of freedom, of life - until I abruptly remembered that she too, died at the hands of a madman. *

Today, I am back to feeling unsettled and uneasy. Sickened and heartsick at all that I've read and heard. Horrified that this is real and that this monster walked among us and that there are still more heinous truths to be told.

Terrified that there are more just like him, watching, waiting, learning...hunting.

On the other hand, despite these grim thoughts, I long to appease those who might pull their shades tighter still and double-lock their doors in the wake of these dark days. I remind those around me that while evil - clearly - exists, the world is not full of demons and the Russell Williams' of the world are few and far between.

I suppose that dropping a plate of cookies off on a stranger's doorstep may seem foolish and unwelcome in this day and age. Odd and some might say, a bit inappropriate, given the raw feelings that one man has inspired in this city, in particular.

But - especially today - I hope that my new neighbours are touched and delighted with the gesture and that my children absorb the lesson I want them to learn: Strangers are simply friends we haven't met, yet.

I hope.

"Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist. Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed.

G.K. Chesterton."

A Light Snuffed Out...

11 days.

Eleven agonizing days for Jessica Elizabeth Lloyd's mother. 11 long, anxiety-ridden nights for her only sibling, Andy. 11 days that have simultaneously paralyzed and mobilized this city, far east of the places where bad stuff is supposed to happen. Just south of the place where Jessica died and of the home of her accused murderer.

Today - 11 days too late - the waiting is over and Jessica is gone. A beautiful light, snuffed out.

When L. rang first thing this morning - before I'd managed to even slurp through a single cup of coffee, before I'd logged onto the internet hoping for good news about Jessica, before I'd even turned off the porch light which has burned every night, all night since Jessica disappeared - I knew the news wasn't good.

Sure enough, L. glumly informed me that Jessica's body had been found in Tweed - a hop, skip and one long jump from her home north of Belleville. An arrest had been made and no, it wasn't the mechanic from Kingston whose name has been hastily scratched off the thousands of "Missing" posters that paper this city and beyond.

We both expressed our sadness and our guilt-inducing lack of surprise. It has been, after all, eleven days.

An hour passed before L. rang again, her voice low and serious as she relayed that the man charged with Jessica's murder is called Russell Williams. A few rapid keystrokes and a Google later I gasped as I saw who he is:  Russell Williams is the newly-appointed Commander of CFB Trenton. In effect, THE man in charge of the largest Airbase in Canada and as imposing a man on paper as he appears to be in person.

He is very tall. And very fit. Handsome. Colonel Williams looks honest, competent and good. He has an intelligent, reassuring, typically-military bearing  - one that automatically elicits respect. Obedience. Trust. He is also the kind of man who looks very familiar - partly that's genetics but also it's because he IS familiar to many of us. Because he has been here the whole time.

"Poor girl never stood a chance," I mused - angry, shocked and feeling suddenly afraid. "If a man in uniform, certainly one as "capable-and-good-seeming" as Colonel Williams appeared at my door, no matter the hour, my instinct would be to fling open the door and let him in."

"As it would be for most of us, " L. agreed quietly. We conversed in horrified whispers - trying not to scare and worry the children, hovering nearby. Trying not to scare and worry each other and ourselves.

We spoke of our shattered sense of  peace, our own vulnerabilities as both mothers and daughters. Mostly we expressed absolute shock that a trusted, indeed a larger-than-life universal symbol of goodness - A Canadian Soldier - has committed such heinous crimes. Worse, he did so in our happy, safe haven from a world gone mad.

Belleville has been dubbed "The Friendly City" and having now called it home for an entire year, I'd have to say that it's aptly named. The Lloyd family have been here for years and years - generations, in fact. I don't know them, but almost everyone else I know, does. It is simply that kind of place - a small town, wrapped in "City" paper. People ARE friendly and open - with doors, smiles, their homes, their hearts.

Horrific crimes such as the ones Williams is charged with committing - the murders of two local women in less than six months plus two vicious home invasions in which two other women were brutally sexually assaulted - are not supposed to happen here. We're the "Friendly City".

Apparently we were also the perfect place for a chisel-faced psychopath to find both esteemed work AND trusting victims. A tragic meeting place for light and dark, good and evil.

Given that, I think I'll leave the porch light burning for a few more nights - perhaps longer.

I leave the porch light burning to cast away dark shadows that appear, suddenly, to loom. To bring warmth to a city frozen in shock and grief for its lost daughter.

As a symbol of love and warmth for Jessica's family, who must now try to live with this awful black truth - and forevermore, without her.

To honor and embrace our shattered community and to remind myself that while bad things do happen this is still a good place.

And finally, in memory of a woman beloved: Jessica Elizabeth Lloyd. May her peace be deep.