This will never go away

Why can't "certain people" (and you know who you are) understand that when a husband kills his wife his children face a lifetime of hurt, anger, distrust, even undeserved feelings of guilt as they grow up without those they relied upon the most. I guess few people can identify with such loss and betrayal.

There are three things going on that make this a 'triple whammy' for the kids:

No. 1, Their mom died. No. 2, She was murdered. No. 3, Their dad did it.
To the kids, it's an absolute numbing.


They are essentially orphaned, and the world they once knew ended in an instant. Police and protective services failed them and they were thrown into my arms – thank God I was there to catch them.

These kids were not a consideration for Sean when he killed Linda. He acted out of intense hatred for her. "Perpetrators are extremely narcissistic people," said a psychologist. "They don't think about the kids. He thinks - 'It's all about me. I'm all good, and you're all bad. If everybody thinks you're horrible, I win.' If he really was concerned about the kids, this is the last thing he would do.

Well Sean, you didn't win. You lost everything and went down as a murderer and rapist.

For the kids, it will take time just to comprehend what happened. They will need a long time to heal, with support from us, the community, including church and school. We will give them a normal life and stability. They need the freedom to be kids, the freedom to goof around, go to movies and amusement parks. They need the freedom not to talk about it at all. They need to know they are safe and not be afraid anymore.

These kids are the true victims; they will carry this burden for their entire lives.

Not only do I have to deal with their immediate emotional trauma, the long-term consequences are even more devastating. These kids will experience their own form of post-traumatic stress syndrome for many years.

The kids don't know what really happened. How will they cope in later years? There are going to be questions no one can answer.

It is hard to understand how a man would kill his wife and fail to recognize or care about the impact on his children. He should have thought about what he was doing to innocent children. He only thought about himself. But, he had the presence of mind to have sex in his son's bed with an underage girl while my sister bled to death in the next room. What a sick, selfish bastard. When the children find out the truth, they will ask, How could he do this? That was Mom. They're not going to be quick to forgive, if at all. Forever, they're going to be scarred. They're always going to be the kids whose father killed their mother. And, if that horror isn't bad enough, what will they think when they find out about the girl he had sex with while my sister died on the bedroom floor?

We are the surviving family that is left to pick up the pieces with no apologies from the killer's family. They have only thoughts of easing their own consciences because my sister begged them for help and they just stood by and did nothing. If she would have told me he threatened to kill her and himself, and if I knew about the fear and intimidation she faced, he would be locked up somewhere now and my sister would be alive. We could have helped her; if they didn't want to get involved they should have called us to warn us that he threatened to kill her, or the police could have warned us, or CPS could have warned us, or the hospital could have warned us. They didn't. Even if they didn't care about my sister, didn't they care about his threats to commit suicide?

I keep Linda's memory alive for the kids but they are sad whenever they think of her not being around anymore. They like to hear stories about her and I tell them about when she was little. I guess later they can decide about their father, when they find out the truth. They'll have to deal with it then, but they will have years of support and therapy behind them and hopefully they will be strong and confident. I want to show them that there are good people in the world, not just evil ones. They don't really talk or ask about their father anyway so it isn't something I have to deal with.

I have no time to hate him because that is wasted energy, energy that I need for the kids. Sometimes it seems like this is something no one else can truly grasp. It's like I live in a different reality than his family. They still haven't apologized for their son, as if he did nothing. I sometimes wonder how they live with themselves.

This will never go away. It's something we will have to learn to live with. I just wish they would understand that and just leave us alone to heal.