There are things you can't un-see.
There are things you can't un-feel.
Despite how awful the truth may be, once it is known, it shapes us - how we respond - how we think.
Ignorance can come from many things. It can be a choice - closing your eyes to what is around you. Or maybe it's lack of access - never experiencing anything different. Or maybe it is simply naivety - being too young to have experienced enough life to understand the world. But there is a beauty we call innocence. Thinking the best of people. Hope for the future. Belief in the impossible. Childlike faith. And yet, to thrive one must leave behind at least some of that innocence. One cannot remain naive. If you want to make a difference in the world, you have to see the ugliness and injustice and corruption. You have be honest with yourself about your own flaws and failings. You have to recognize that truth and justice must be fought for - that doing what is right often comes at a cost.
For Bunny this entry into reality has been quick and brutal. From without and within, she now wrestles with the awful truth - her actions - their consequences - her current reality - her precarious future. For the last several months, things happened so quickly, frequently changing with little knowledge about what was coming next, that I don't think she ever really sat with her reality. Whether it was actual shock or simply repressing all her thoughts and feelings until she had space to process them fully, she is only now asking herself questions we have been thinking all along. And while she has very few answers, the questions weigh on her. I hear this in subtle comments on the phone. Or brief statements in her emails. The few questions she verbalizes to us reveal a much deeper questioning in her heart and mind. Over the past 2 weeks she has been posing questions like:
How do I move forward without just putting all of these emotions and experiences in a box and pretending it didn't happen?
How do I have real relationships with people when I get out - I don't want this to be ALL they see, but this is a big part of my life story.
How is this impacting others? My parents - my brothers (especially AJ) - the victims?
How can I ever make things right?
How did I get here? How did I throw my life away so fast?
What happens next? Is there really a future out there for me?
These are all appropriate to ask. But as her mom I can't help but grieve. I grieve her innocence lost in this all. I grieve how little guidance I can provide over bad phone lines and emails limited to 2000 characters. I grieve how little emotional and spiritual support she has for these questions - who is showing her mercy? - who is teaching her about grace? - who is giving her hope?
She is no longer in a beautiful prison of ignorance but a very real and hard prison of reality. She cannot change the past. She cannot know the future. She simply obeys the instructions for the present and marks each day as complete when the lights go out at 8:30 pm.
For those of you praying - please pray for her mental, emotional and spiritual health. She MUST process this experience - and yet in our limitations for communication I have to rely fully on the Holy Spirit to minister to the very deepest parts of her heart and mind. And please pray that those in contact with her speak words of encouragement - of hope - of grace.
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