Senseless in Every Sense

"What happened?" his neighbor phoned to ask after hearing what sounded like gun shots.
"I shot a cop," he calmly replied. "I just blew my wife’s brains out. Should I turn myself in or kill myself?"
"Turn yourself in," the neighbor answered. And then the line went dead.

Unfortunately, it was all true -- the shots, the wounded officer outside, and the dead wife inside. It all happened Wednesday afternoon and the disconcerting questions have distracted me ever since. How could a bright, apparently winsome young woman, a 3-time veteran of Iraqi deployments, get herself entangled with, pregnant by, and finally married to this man with a blaring history of abuse, assault and restraining orders requested by numerous women?
8-months after the birth of their baby boy.
4-months after their wedding.
How does a relationship that begins in euphoric love find its end in a kidnapping in a Target parking lot and a murder, less than an hour later, in the apartment they had, until a month ago, shared?

I suppose one answer is that few of us do background checks on the people with whom we fall in love. After all, since we are good and decent people, there's no possible way that we could be drawn to someone who isn't. Besides, wouldn't such a past eventually creep out into the open -- in the whispers of friends; in anonymous tips or newspaper clippings slipped surreptitiously under the door? OK, probably not that last one, but surely somehow. Right?

But then perhaps she knew. Perhaps she was fully aware, and believed that somehow she was different -- that those other women were really to blame, or maddeningly brought the worst out in him; or perhaps she naively thought she could change him; or perhaps refusing to think about such things, stuck a finger in each ear and began to sing The Flintstones theme song loud enough to block out the sound of the whispers.

In the end, she couldn't finally block out the sound of the gunshots.

Don't misunderstand me. I don't mean for a second to blow blame in her direction. She may have been uninformed, she may have been naive, she may even have been in denial -- she may have been all of these or none of these -- but none of these is a capital offense. He is the criminal. He is the one who stalked her, forced her into his car, and then killed her with a gun he was prohibited by law to possess.

No, it's just that I can't fathom any underlying story. I can't get my mind around the immensity of it.

And I can't imagine what the preacher will manage to croak out of his throat in the course of her funeral that will make anyone feel any better. I'm guessing that pointing out how "all things work together for good for those who love the Lord..." will be a tough sell. In some abstract or over-arching sense we can believe it as a tenet of our faith, but it is hard to hear while the sound of gun blast still echoes in the air.

Perhaps what I'm running up against in my inability to understand this terrible story is the fact that some things just make no sense. Senseless from every angle.

As her military friends observed with dismay, she survived daily threats from the enemy in Iraq, only to die in her own apartment at the hands of her husband. Senseless indeed.

May the Lord bless and keep her, be gracious to her, look upon her with a smile, and give her...
...and all concerned...
...peace.