Tragedy of the worst kind has touched our fair town and affected our young people. We see their pain as they place flowers and teddy bears at the site where a friend died. We can only hope they will eventually find peace and closure. The same hope I had for my granddaughter last year when her friend was killed—a girl she had just begun to know in their first year together in high school.
     I knew what she was going through. I'd been a high school sophomore at a girls' boarding school when my mother called to tell me my girlfriend back home had been murdered. Mary had been stabbed more times than I could fathom. Mom told me what had happened. Mary's parents had forbidden her older sister to date a boy who had spent time in jail. They snuck around, anyway, and Mary threatened to tell. One night, when Mary was babysitting, her sister's boyfriend rang the doorbell, saying he had some stuff in his car that he wanted Mary to take home. He said he and her sister had broken up. The next day, Mary's body was found about a mile away, near the old ski jump at Minnehaha Park.
     After Mom's call, I went to the principal's office to get permission to go home for the funeral. A mean old nun, she'd read about the murder in the newspaper and gave me that cold, hard stare of hers before she said, "They say her last words were, 'Oh, my God.' I hope she was saying the Act of Contrition."
     I backed out of the room and ran to the dormitory where my classmates waited to hear what had happened. I told them Mary was the sweetest, prettiest girl anyone had ever known. That she didn't have to say an Act of Contrition; she'd never done anything wrong in her entire life.
     I didn't know what to say to the kids at the funeral, the ones Mary and I had gone to grade school with. And those from the high school Mary had attended, where I'd spent part of freshman year. Mom encouraged me to say a few words to Mary's parents. The funeral was a blur: the family walking down the long aisle toward the front pews, the casket and pallbearers, Mass and Holy Communion, incense and holy water.
     After the burial, Mom took me to lunch at a fancy restaurant. I pushed my food around and around on the plate and nodded as Mom talked. My mind was on the procession of cars that had made their way to the cemetery—a line so long I couldn't see the end behind us or the hearse in front that carried Mary's body. We went down Minnehaha Avenue, past the house where Mary had been babysitting, and alongside the park where she'd been killed. I wondered if Mary's parents had been crying inside the long black funeral car. I never cried for Mary. I knew if I started, I would never be able to stop. That's why I couldn't talk to Mom about it, no matter how hard she tried.
     I never saw Mary's family again until my youngest sister was married nearly 20 years later. I hadn't known Mary's mother worked for the caterer and would be serving coffee and cake. "Hello, Andy," she said. I began to cry. And couldn't stop.