I generally hate writing or reading about this sort of thing. Horrible things happen every day in the world and wallowing in them doesn't make the world a better place. However, I just found out something that really sucks.
When I first started working a real job, back in my 20s, I was a technical writer for a company in Akron. I had a couple of co-workers who were experienced tech writers who were not just good mentors, but fun to be around. One was named Jan and the other was Lynn Riek. She later divorced and became Lynn Fassnacht.
Thanks to the internet, I got in touch with her once right around the turn of the century. Met her new husband, caught up on the gossip about all our old co-workers. She was just one of those people who made you happy just to be around them. I was thinking now would be a great time to get back in touch with her after all these years.
Lynn was such a sweetheart. I really loved her. If she weren't almost 20 years older than me (and married), I'd have probably asked her out. Of course, that really doesn't make me unique. I don't know of anybody who didn't love Lynn, and I can't imagine anybody who wouldn't have loved her. She was just a sweet, gentle, wonderful soul.
Anyway, I was on Facebook and wondered if she had an account. Did a couple of searches for her name and nothing came up. Went out to Google and found a blog post that said, "...most wonderful coworker named Lynn Fassnacht. On Monday we learned that she had been murdered by her schizophrenic stepson..."
"Lynn Fassnacht" isn't exactly a common name, but there's more than one in the country. So, I did some more searching to see if this was the one and when I saw her death notice on a board for North Texas State University (where she once attended), I realized, yes, it was her.
Apparently her psycho stepson stabbed her to death one day.
Not a lot to say about it. It was a stupid, needless death. Personally, I think we should have a lot more instutitions and we should be institutionalizing a lot more people than we currently do, both for their own good and the good of society. Of course, that's neither here nor there at the moment.
I just can't believe it, though. Lynn, murdered? Not like this sort of thing ever makes any sense, but in this case, it certainly doesn't. She wasn't the type of person who ever said a cross word to anybody. At least when you have people who are confrontational, who don't do what it takes to avoid trouble, there's a certain sense to things, but not this time.
I guess if I were a more creative person, I could find some way to relate this to studying the law, but I'm just not that smart, I guess. Middle age is a strange time because now is really when folks start dying. I just heard that a classmate, Donnie Bishop, passed away recently. Never knew Donnie to say a mean thing to anybody, ever. A relative via my Dad's marriage, Jon McCall, died last year. At this age, nobody should be dying, but statistically speaking, it's inevitable that some folks do. It's just a shame when they go.
