I am taking this somewhat valuable time from working on my comic book projects to write what I consider a pretty important blog. A blog that sadly not that many people follow. And a blog that very few people will take to heart. Because two years ago a friend of mine was taken from this earth. Lisa Marie Berrie was just twenty-five years old. She was a mother of two beautiful children. A sister. A daughter and a friend to many.
Lisa was taken from this world and the people who loved her by a careless, thoughtless act of rage by someone who truly deserves all the horrible things that I hope happen to him. She was beaten and then strangled to death by her boyfriend and father of her second child, Paul Beam. As with a lot of "statistics" Lisa was killed, when she made the choice to leave a violent situation. Her bags were packed and at the door. Her car was pulled up to the apartment, as police reports indicated. And her two children were in the next room when she was murdered. It took nearly 15 months before her daughter began to speak again. But Lisa will never speak again. Her voice will never be heard by anybody again. Her beautiful smile will never be seen by human eyes again. And nobody will ever be able to hold her and feel her heart beat again.
Lisa was a quiet young woman with a lot of dreams and aspirations in life, including a college education and a new start. A new life far away from her abuser. Lisa will always be remembered by her friends, her family and her oldest child, Jeremy. Her youngest, Kaitlyn was sadly too young at the time of her mother's murder to remember her. But her son, Jeremy found the strength to face her killer last February and tell the world how angry he was that his little sister has no mommy. He clutched his mother's teddy bear closely when he read aloud his thoughts in the courtroom.
Lisa had the uncanny knack of hooking up with guys who really weren't good for her. Jeremy's father bailed when he found out she was pregnant. And Kaitlyn's father is the one who ultimately took her life. But somewhere in the chaos that was her life, Lisa found me. It was the Summer of 2000, and my right knee had already begun swelling and hurting for what would ultimately become what I thought would be my biggest life changing event. It turns out it was until one October night in 2009. I don't know why I logged onto that website that night. The night after Wonder Woman Day. The week after I got home from APE Con in San Francisco. Her sister contacted me and said she believed I used to know her sister, Lisa. Without thinking I responded in the positive and asked how Lisa was. And then it hit me. The past tense of the statement. I went to Suzi's myspace page and saw with sadness and horror what I had feared since she and I parted ways in 2003. Lisa was gone. A victim of domestic violence. Murdered by the hands of a man who was the father of one of her children.
It's been so long since I last saw her, and for some reason it still seems like yesterday. I can still hear her voice. I can still see her smile. And I still remember her quirky good nature.
No amount of bargaining, or vengeance will bring her back to us. No amount of money raised will make our lives whole again. Nothing can undo that fateful night. But I suppose everything happens for some cosmic reason. Domestic violence wouldn't matter this much to me if it had been someone I didn't know. Life wouldn't seem so fragile if we didn't feel this way about those we loved. And life matters. All life. And nothing will stop me from living my life. Nothing. I will always remember the girl with the big quirky smile who brought so much light to my life that Summer in 2000.
Everyone is somebody's child.
I miss you Lisa. Everyday for every day of the rest of my life.
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