Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Rachelle Grimmer

I can’t stop thinking about it.

It happened more than a week ago.

A mother walked in a Texas welfare office and after a seven hour standoff shot her two children then shot and killed herself.

Rachelle Grimmer was 38 years-old.

I’m 38 years-old.

Her daughter – Ramie, 12, died of gunshot wounds a few days later on Wednesday, December 7 – Pearl Harbor Day. Her son – Timothy, 10, was removed from life support and died on Thursday, December 8.

The shooting happened Monday, December 5 – on my birthday.

I have thought, pondered, contemplated, and cried about this for more than a week.

I have been haunted.

As a former journalist I have listened and read reports by journalists covering this event.

I want to ‘make sense’ of this tragedy.

Not possible, I know.

I have heard and read hints of mental illness.

That might make me feel better on some level if I believed it.

I don’t know especially since there has been no documentation found suggesting she was mentally unstable – only a slur tossed out from her former mother-in-law, whose son – the children’s father – had been trying to take the children from their mother for years. A police report suggesting she might have some mental issues. But no proof. Even close neighbors have said that Rachelle Grimmer was not mentally ill, but rather that she was compassionate and intelligent.

I'm not sure what to believe.

That leaves me with this thought - could it be that she and her children were just hungry.

I have thought long and hard this week about Rachelle Grimmer.

I have thought about her situation; wondered at what it must feel like to be so desperate to feed your children.

I have had that moment of panic – that realization that in a few days there would be nothing to feed my child.

Monday, December 5 I was receiving hundreds of Facebook messages wishing me a Happy Birthday. I was getting calls from friends and loved ones. I knew presents, a cake, and my family would be waiting for me when I returned home from work that night.

What did she experience that day? What was it that finally made her feel hopeless, worthless, and empty that day? At what point that night did she look in the face of her children and make her decision to shot them? When did she decide to kill herself?

Monday, December 5 was the first day of the South Plains Food Bank’s U Can Share Food Drive. We raised more than 400,000 pounds of food and more than $170,000 during the week of our drive. But the community gave more than pounds and funds during our drive – they gave hope.

When we here at the food bank give out a food box, we give more than food – we give hope.

I know that food was offered to this mother during the hostage negotiations. I am sure at that point she knew she would be headed to prison and perhaps would never see her children again – the same children she had been begging the system for help to feed since July.

I wish Rachelle would have gone to her local food bank. Maybe things would be so different today.

Maybe if Rachelle had been given that box of food, that box of hope, maybe she would have felt like she had the time to gather all the documentation needed for her food stamp case.

I believe, as painful as it is, as hard as it is – i believe Rachelle Grimmer was hungry.

Rachelle Grimmer needed food for her children.

Rachelle Grimmer needed a food box.

Rachelle Grimmer needed hope.

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