Y'know, I can see both sides here. I can see why some would be angry at her family and her father because he didn't accept her sexuality, but on the other hand, how many of us here can honestly say that if their child came to them with news like this that we'd welcome it with open arms. Some of us can honestly say we'd be supportive, but consider the world we now live in. I don't know this family, but I know of many like it. The reason I started writing and reading slash was because of a family like Trilly's and one boy in particular: Michael. I write for Michael who was beautiful and wonderful but who had to fight the whole entire world every day and every second of that day. I remember a boy whose face was so similar to Victoria's that it took my breath away. Their face had the same magical glow, their eyes held the same touch of sadness, they shared a pain that I can never know nor can most of us ever experience.
When you have raised a child and protected a child all their life then discover one day that your baby has been placed in a life threatening situation--that the tender hearted baby you shielded all their life is now a target for any number of violent hate groups it's going to scare the living hell out of you. Every parent out there asks themselves at some point, what did I do wrong? Why is my child not living the perfect life I worked so hard to try and provide? The answer is that we must take responsibility on an individual level. We can't blame our parents or ourselves, we have to stand up and live our own lives. Who knows what Trilly was thinking of when she decided to end her life, I don't. I don't claim to have the faintest inkling of it, but I do know that she made that decision to take her own life and she followed through with it. She made that choice. She came to the crossroads and turned away from the harder path which is living with what fate deals us and going on with life. You can't blame anyone for that except her and you can't blame her because it was her life, not ours.
What we need to do is take from this some bit of wisdom which will guide us and help us make the right decisions with our own kids. There is a family out there tonight that is suffering, there is a father and a mother out there who are at their wits end berating themselves over this terrible mess Trilly left behind.
There's a story in the Old Testament about a man named Balaam and his donkey. The man was riding his donkey down the road when an angel appeared in the middle of the path holding a flaming sword. The man couldn't see the angel or the sword pointed toward him but the donkey could so he stopped and wouldn't move on. The man beat the donkey until he turned and walked the other way. Again, the angel appeared to the donkey and he stopped and again the man beat the donkey. Finally, after the donkey had upset the man past the point of reason, he took out his staff and was about to beat the animal once more when the donkey said, "What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times?"
Balaam answered the donkey, "You have made a fool of me! If I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now."
The donkey said to Balaam, "Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?" "No," he said.
At that moment, the angel appeared so both the donkey and the man could see him and said, "Why have you beaten your donkey these three times? I have come here to oppose you because your path is a reckless one before me. The donkey saw me and turned away from me these three times. If she had not turned away, I would certainly have killed you by now, but I would have spared her."
At that point the man apologized for his foolishness and saw the error of his ways. I think the point I'm trying to make is this: Beating up on someone who we perceive as doing wrong does not help anyone, least of all ourselves. We all miss Trilly and we're all angry at the way she handled her pain, but it won't bring her back no matter how much we beat ourselves up or lash out. No one here is a bad guy, we're all victims, especially those closest to this poor girl. We've all been cheated but that doesn't mean that one person is responsible for it. Trilly was set upon this earth to walk a certain path. If she turned in the wrong direction then we can't go back and fix it but we can learn from her mistakes. Don't let anger get in the way of reason, don't let fear make you put aside love and don't judge anyone by standards that none of us can live up to. I don't have all the answers, but I do know that all the cussing and hatred won't bring back our fallen friend no matter how loud we shout or how right the words sound on our tongues. Now is a time of contemplation and rememberance. trilly had all the pain and anger she could stand so adding more to the mix isn't going to do any of us any good. Instead we need to do the right thing and make it so future generations of kids like Victoria and Michael live in a world where they can be normal and accepted. Stop the hate, stop the anger, and start the healing, okay?
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