Voices

from Melissa...

PHONE CALL AWAY

Deena Tyler and I keep in regular touch during my trip to Belgium. Yesterday we chatted online when I found the LSJ headline about yet another murdered woman in Lansing.

Sandra Eichorn "'Brutal' death is a shock" Aug. 29

The news struck me physically. I wanted to hear my mother's voice, like I wanted to hear her voice the morning I was told by phone that planes with people were crashing into buildings with people on September 11, 2001. I tried lunch yesterday with little success and dinner was a no-go.

But I did call my mom at work before trying to sleep. "What's wrong?" She asked, as she always does when I call her from Belgium while she's at work. "Nothing," I said, "Just wanted to hear your voice."

Thankfully, her voice is a phone call away for me to hear, but not for the children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren of Lansing's murder victims, and not for the loved ones of Brandon Williams, a 17-year-old who sometimes may have phoned his elders just to hear their voices.


POETRY AND POLITICS

Survivors of violence deal with survival in different ways. Sometimes we must just swallow the fear that rises and get out of bed to face whatever and whoever may be out there. Sometimes we laugh with loved ones, overcoming the pain and shame put on us by someone else's hands and words. Sometimes we withdrawal from public; sometimes we dive into what's happening in this world.

Poetry is one way for me and many survivors to survive and thrive. Recently, I shared some poems on the Lansing State Journal forums, where I am posting about STOPPING THE VIOLENCE! in Lansing -- to keep our neighborhoods safe and to confront violence targeted against women.

Here are links to the poems:

Number 13
for the unidentified 64-year-old woman
found murdered at 1813 S. Genesee, Lansing, Michigan
(note: now we know she was Sandra Eichorn)

Messages
for rosalind and haywood