The boys at the skate park
In the very early hours of the day Morgan was startled awake by banging on her window. She was really tired and couldn’t find her phone in the dark. She didn’t want to get up and turn on the light because that excites her stalker and then she can count on “his attention” for a much longer time.
She just lay in bed and waited. That wait, she guessed was after midnight, but really early. She drifted back to sleep until 5:00 am when a sharp loud bang woke her up again. Morgan told me at breakfast that she almost pressed her panic button, but didn’t want to wake us. Steve reminded her for the umpteenth time, that if anything happens, let us know. Morgan promised she would.
Ballet was this morning and that always had her smiling no matter what else was going on. After classes she grabbed her camera and went to the skateboard park to photograph the boys doing their tricks.
Morgan loved to quietly master a new skill. Action photography was her latest quest and the skateboard park was a great setting for her. Close-ups, groups, fast, slow, all the different angles. She explained it all to me in great detail. It was an odd year in that snow would have usually closed the park a while ago but the ground was cold, but clear and good enough for a group of young men to be doing something they liked, and for Morgan to bundle up and photograph them.
Just before 5:00 pm I called Morgan to say her father was cooking dinner. She got off the phone with me and called him to see if he wanted help. He told he had news and they would talk over dinner.
At dinner we all discussed the move. Steve had committed to the new shop and there were two places for us a very short walk away. Then a few more that were within a block or so. First big decision was before or after the holidays. Steve and I were leaning toward sooner and Steve was asking Morgan if she would like to work in his office for a few hours each afternoon and Morgan was very excited about that. In the past his shops were always in places that became deserted around 4:00 pm and Morgan never felt safe so when she did help Steve with his work it was mostly at home. But now if she could walk with Wylah over to his office and have people around, she thought it would work out great.
Morgan was going babysitting over the weekend and was going to need my car so we talked about that a little bit. She also had quite a few babysitting jobs lined up in December and she was wondering how to keep track. I told her I would see if next year’s calendars would have this December in them, and if they did I would just get one for her. The detectives were coming tomorrow, so I reminded Morgan.
Today it is November 23, 2012 – I remember so vividly how the stalking had become something we wanted to ignore. It seemed like we were never going to stop him, although we would never admit it. And Steve and I talked a lot about how strange it had become.
The term “lulled to sleep” may sound completely out of place, but it was what happened to some extent. We had come to “expect” certain things from the stalker. I hear it over and over again now. Invisible lines are created unintentionally, and your stalker does not cross them, this gives you a mistaken feeling of security. You want to feel safe in your world. I have heard stories over my life of people spending time in a part of town that was down on its luck, and car alarms, maybe cars racing around at all hours and even gunfire was not out of the ordinary – on a daily basis. And they stayed, and even got used to it somehow.
As I approach a year since Morgan was killed I still am not sure how to advise someone on how to really stop their stalker. However: it is something that has become very important to me. Real solutions to stalking would mean so much to Steve and I. Not a better way to ignore the growing problem, as is far to often the case today – but a better way to stop it, to return lives to those who have had theirs taken from them. And a better way for justice to mean something more than a hollow promise. Morgan’s rights were taken from her in so many ways, and they continue to be taken away by people that don’t know the facts of her case, but believe any lies that they hear on the Internet as the Gospel truth…how sad.
Click here to read about the 120th day of Morgan’s stalking https://morgansstalking.com/?p=2411