Monday, September 05, 2011

Written several months back...

There are no words that can come close to explaining the events of this week, especially the events of Monday, February 28, 2011. On this date, my friend of the past 16+ years, Shanda Yenglin took her own life and tried to take the lives of her adopted foster children. I cannot even process all the information that is coming in. The press is relentless in their pursuit of the most awful dirt they can dig up. I suppose next I'll be seeing her ex-husband on the news saying vile things about her, as he has done in the comment section of a local TV station's story.

I have so many, many questions...like "What the HELL were you thinking???" "How could you justify murder?", "Why did you abandon them?", "You gave everything for them, why would you hurt them so horribly?". I sit there contemplating these questions filled with anger that she did this. and then I cry and think "Why did you not call me?", "Why didn't I make more time for you?", "Why did God let this happen?", "Why did you do this?", "Why did you leave?"

She left this world in one of the most selfish ways possible, suicide, and left those who did not know her thinking she was a monster and that kills me inside because I always known her to be loving and generous person. Her smile lit up a room and her laughter was infectious. She was a hard-worker and a go-getter. She never stopped seeking after her dreams and NEVER turned her back on God, though times were really tough. She survived a failed marriage, breast cancer, an accidental drug overdose from breast cancer medications which was within minutes of killing her, difficulty with her children's behavioral problems, and ultimately the loss of her children to the system she tried to rescue them from. Each and every hurdle she hit head on with a positive attitude and faith in her creator, only to have another hurdle waiting.

She posted this in her blog a month or so before her near death:
I don't know when I'll die, I hope when I am 99 in my sleep, but whenever that day comes I hope that the people who come to the funeral, who weep because I am gone from this earth, I hope that they can honestly say that they saw Jesus in me, because without him I am nothing, with him I am everything I have ever wanted to be! He was 33 when he died, I was 33 when I was diagnosed with cancer. He loved children, I would love 4 more (yes.. I am crazy). He loved his father and obeyed him. It's taken me a long time and a lot of hard lessons, but I do my best to be a faithful obedient daughter every day of my life.


Unfortunately, due to the press around her suicide, there was no funeral.  No way to grieve.  I miss you Shanda.  Maybe someday I will understand.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I also knew her and it's quite obvious to me something acutely changed her thought process. I think we agree she was was good person with the best of intentions until *something* happened. Antidepressants would be that something. They kill marriages, kill love, kill humanity & kill faith. No one survives antidepressants in tact. Forgive her, she truly couldn't see the madness in her line of thinking. It's a *perk* of being medicated. The drugs take away 100% of ones self awareness.