Mother's tearful plea: 'Please do not forget her'
Post-Tribune
May 14, 2015
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:0HpLCYwELxMJ:www.chicagotribune.com/suburbs/post-tribune/opinion/ct-ptb-murder-victim-memorial-st-0515-20150514-story.html+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us
Somehow, she summoned enough strength to stand up and thank everyone for attending Thursday's funeral service for her daughter, Brianna Lyn Hefner Ballor.
"The outpouring of love has been beyond belief," Hefner said inside Moeller Funeral Home in Valparaiso, which overflowed with family, friends and loved ones.
With that said, Hefner had only one final request for them, the same heartfelt request that any grieving mother would have regarding her child. But first, Hefner let out a sigh and a shrug before admitting something to the mourners, and maybe to herself.
"What can anybody really say?" she asked.
What can anybody really say about the truly senseless death of Ballor, shot and killed on Mother's Day weekend by her husband, who then took his own life, police said. The couple were in the middle of a divorce and there was evidence of a fight prior to the shootings, authorities said.
What can anybody really say about the loss of a woman whose legacy features words such as sweet, loving, caring, smart and resilient? What can anybody really say about a 31-year-old mother who will not be here for her own 2-year-old daughter's life?
The Rev. Gretchen Seidler-Gibbs did her best to use mere words in a situation when only feelings really mattered. She read aloud several biblical passages written thousands of years ago, praying that they still offered hope, comfort and healing.
Seidler-Gibbs reminded mourners that Thursday was "Ascension Day," according to the Christian liturgical calendar. One of the great solemnities, it commemorates the bodily ascension of Jesus into heaven on the 40th day of Easter.
Jesus, too, was "murdered," she said.
At one point in our collective history, the word death had a period after it. However, Jesus' ascension turned that fateful period into a faithful comma, giving believers a new sentence on life, and on death, she said.
"Life is the final word, not death," she preached.
Surrounded by life-affirming photos of Ballor's life, rather than a casket, Seidler-Gibbs invited mourners to step up and offer their own personal memories about Ballor.
Only one person did.
The man said he was a representative from the Morgan Township High School graduating class of 2002, all 43 members, where Ballor, the class valedictorian, was voted the "sweetest grad."
"Bri," as everyone called her, was loving, caring and resilient, he said. She loved sports. She loved to compete. She loved to win. She also was a distance runner who didn't make it the distance in life she had hoped.
This was the overriding sentiment from the mourners who packed the funeral home, which used a video stream in an adjacent room to reach everyone. Outside, vehicles were parked around the block, and into empty nearby parking lots.
Ballor, who will be cremated, touched the hearts of a lot of people in her relatively short life. She touched them in high school, in college where she earned a degree in criminal justice, and at her job at the Porter County Juvenile Detention Center, where she offered her special gift to troubled kids.
"She gave a life of service," Seidler-Gibbs said after a photo slideshow played to the song "I Miss You" by Avril Lavigne.
Ballor's 2-year-old daughter, Brynn, stared at some of those photos, unaware that they would someday be part of the patchwork memories of her late mother.
"There was nothing more important than her daughter," Seidler-Gibbs said. "Her legacy will continue on."
She encouraged everyone to write down their memories of Ballor and give them to her family, who will create a memory box for Brynn. The girl can then open that box as she grows up to learn more about her mother, and more about herself.
We can only hope that Brynn will never associate Mother's Day as the day her father killed her mother. And himself. Not a word was publicly spoken at the service about Ballor's husband, Glenn. Instead, Seidler-Gibbs repeatedly preached love over hate, hope over anger, healing over torment.
"This is how we redeem this situation," she said. "Something good must come out of this. It has to."
She quoted scripture from Ecclesiastes: "A time to kill and a time to heal; a time to tear down and a time to build up; a time to weep and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a time to dance; a time to tear and a time to mend, a time to be silent and a time to speak."
Hefner's time to speak came earlier than expected, as no one else had the strength to do so. They were still absorbing Ballor's death. Her life. And Brynn's future.
Hefner lives next door to her daughter's home in a quiet, rural neighborhood just southwest of the Porter County fairgrounds. It was Hefner who received a frantic phone call from her daughter just before her killing. It was Hefner who called police, who found the bodies on the floor in their bedroom.
The night before her daughter's memorial service, I called Hefner to offer my apologies.
"I'm very sorry for your loss," I said, noting to her how cliché it must sound.
"I understand and thank you," Hefner replied politely. "It's a difficult situation. There's nothing more that can be said."
But there was one more thing to say.
Hefner may have realized it while standing alone before the crowd, surrounded by cheerful, loving photos of her daughter. Or maybe she knew she would say it from the moment after her daughter's death.
In a mother's plea that ended in a child's whimper, Hefner told mourners, "Please do not forget her."
No comments:
Post a Comment