Gravity

There came a time when the Attorney General’s office contacted me about participating in a Grand Jury. I didn’t know exactly what that meant, or what my role would be. They explained to me that it was kind of like a practice for the real thing; almost a mock trial to see what facts they had and how a jury would sentence the accused with the evidence they had collected. It sounded like a good way to see how prepared the prosecutors were to try Rob with the evidence and facts about the case they had gathered. I knew the defense would be requiring me to take the stand at the actual trial, and that thought was frightening, but I even felt anxiety about participating in this practice trial for the prosecution.

   

I was scared of the unknown. I spent the next few weeks nervous and skeptical about the questions I would be asked to answer. I imagined the moment over and over; I even asked myself questions and practiced my replies. They were always playing inside of me; it was like a weight that held onto my ankles and squeezed my heart everywhere I went. These questions were always in the back of my mind. I rehearsed in the shower, I stumbled over them as I changed diapers. Any moment when I was alone in the car, I would cry my answers out loud . . . usually ending in screams and anger, overwhelmed by the thought of taking the stand.

   

I was paralyzed by the fear that seemed to have taken over my thoughts. I went over and over all my memories of that night. I wished so badly that it had all been different, but the truth was what I had to state. I hated that the truth was so hard, and so humiliating. I knew I had to be prepared if I was going to be able to get on that stand and not break down. I knew it wasn’t the real deal, and that it was just a practice for the trial . . . but I worked myself up about it night and day.

   

I was very nervous about going to the courthouse. I was afraid that I would be there at the same time as some of the other witnesses. In all of our conversations about my participation, I made it very clear that I did not want to have even the possibility of running into Kandi in the halls. … I wanted to be in the building at different times than her. They assured me over and over that that would be the case.

   

An attorney friend of mine made arrangements to drive me down to the courthouse on the day the Grand Jury was set to take place. I was told they would start with Kandi’s testimony—since she was the only witness of Emmett’s death—and they would end with my testimony, Emmett’s wife. They had asked me to arrive around 2:00 p.m.

   

When we got to the office of the Victims’ Witness Coordinator, I was so scared that I was shaking. The thought that Kandi had been in the office earlier that day made my stomach turn. Since Emmett’s murder, I had not been in public once when I hadn’t searched for her. I looked in every car that passed me, making sure we were not driving on the same road. I hadn’t gone anywhere without the fear that we would meet, and now, here we were in the same building . . . on purpose. It seemed out-of-this-world and unreal that if, by chance, I took the wrong elevator or went down the wrong hallway . . . we could actually meet face to face.

   

The girl in the front office told me to sit in the waiting room chairs. The coordinator finally made her way up to tell us what was going on. She looked distraught, “Hey . . . I am so sorry that we had you come this early. She is still on the stand and she has been for hours. We are just scratching the surface of what they need her to share. You will have to wait here until she is done, and the other witnesses get their chance to take the stand and be questioned. We still have you on the schedule as the final witness.”

So I waited. My heart pounded and my body shook as I sat in the quiet, alone with my thoughts.

Everyone in that courtroom was being told facts that I didn’t even know: facts about how my husband died, truths that only Kandi knew. I didn’t know anything. I hadn’t yet learned that Emmett had driven her in his car, and that they had spent the evening together before they met up with Rob at Walgreens. I hadn’t learned that the two men didn’t even touch each other when Rob confronted Emmett. I didn’t hear Emmett’s last words. He wasn’t there to fight for me. I didn’t hear the gun shots or see the blood dripping from his wounds. I wasn’t there to hold his head as he took his last breath . . . but she was there.

     

I hated the fact that as I sat up in this quiet office waiting, she was sitting in front of a group of people telling them all the things I didn’t even know. I hated the fact that complete strangers were in there being given the answers to all the questions that still played out in my nightmares. They were getting answers to the questions they asked . . . while I sat in silence.

   

What seemed like hours passed, and my turn finally came. I was almost excited as I walked into that room full of strangers. They didn’t know me. … I was just another victim to them. They hadn’t sat in my living room, on my black couch, with the detectives that night. They didn’t see the looks on my babies’ faces when they were told that their dad had been shot; they hadn’t seen the tears running down my cheeks for weeks after Emmett’s murder. It was almost as if I couldn’t wait to let it all out . . . and show them that this victim still had a voice. That gun had nearly destroyed me . . . but I still had a pulse.

   

I raised my hand and promised to tell the truth, and nothing but the truth. With my heart pounding, I took my seat.

“Please state your full name.” I opened my mouth to speak . . .  but my emotions began to take over, and no words came. The bailiff asked me to repeat. “Ashlee Corrigan . . . A S H L E E   C O R R I G A N.” My voice cracked as I pronounced each letter; it was as if my mouth were filled with saltine crackers. My throat was so dry, and the words that rolled around inside of it had no way to get out.

   

As soon as my name left my lips, my eyes began to burn. How could this be real? This couldn’t possibly be my life I was going to be questioned about. It couldn’t be my husband who died. …This wasn’t our story! Suddenly, I didn’t want to be here. The fight or flight mechanism programed inside of me set off its alarm . . . and I started to panic. The attorney could tell I was losing it. He said, “You are a little emotional. … Are you doing okay? … Do you . . .  want . . .”

   

I tried so hard to get my voice to come out again. “Yes, I just . . . this is . . . I . . . I . . . I . . . I will be fine.” I was shaking hysterically. I took a few deep breaths, hoping to put on my smile and not let my completely distraught internal freak-out be witnessed by all. Everything inside of me wanted to scream. I wanted to tell them everything that WE had been through . . . everything I had been forced to witness my kids live through. I wanted to shout about all the nights I had been tapped on the shoulder, and about all the tears that had been shed by me and by my children huddled together in my bed. I wanted to let all these strangers know that I wasn’t just a victim . . . I was me . . . I was his wife . . . I was the mother of his babies. And we were still here . . . and we were still trying to figure out how to live. We had been forced into accepting our sentence. We hadn’t chosen this life . . . and they all needed to know about it!!! Forcing myself to be silent, I sat . . . and waited for my opportunity to let my voice be heard.

   

The jury was told they could ask me any questions they wanted. I don’t really remember much about their questions or any of my answers. I have no idea of how long I was there or how many questions I answered. I know that I spoke a lot about the events of that night, before he left our house. My soul ached for the Emmett I loved, as I told the story about the last words he spoke to me. My heart broke because of the unavoidable truth . . . that it had been her he was fighting for, not me.

     

I never did get to say all that was in my heart; their questions didn’t allow my needs to be fulfilled. All they needed to know about is what transpired that night. The questions seemed to finally slow down, and I thought my time on the stand was coming to an end. My body began to settle down.

   

And then it came: the question I knew I would have to answer . . . the question to which everyone wanted to know the answer . . . the question I will never forget. “Before your husband died, did you know that he and Kandi were having an affair?” Everyone froze . . .

     

I looked around the room. Every set of eyes was staring at me. Those eyes seemed to be boring in deeper than my skin; they were fixed on my soul. Everyone in the room waited . . .

   

As I answered, everyone’s eyes dropped. All of the sudden, nobody could look me in the eye!

  

I felt almost ashamed of myself. How DID I NOT know? What was wrong with me? They all seemed to be looking around the room wondering how the heck I could be married to this man . . .  who died because of this affair . . . and I DIDN’T KNOW?!!!!

   

This group had been sitting here all day listening to the obvious facts about how my husband had been cheating on me, and how he had died. They knew everything that I hadn’t learned before Emmett died. I stared at all their darting eyes, knowing they must have finally learned the truth about me. … I WAS stupid. The facts were as plain as day, and I had missed them when they were right in front of me. I was living them . . . but I was too stupid to figure them out. I could see the thoughts of the members of the Grand Jury, as if they glared out of their eyes as they focused on everything in the room . . . but me. “She should have known . . . and if she’d had any brains, she would have.”

   

I walked out of that courtroom feeling depressed and alone. The findings of the Grand Jury that would come to settle the minds of the prosecutors, only set off more alarms of fear in me. I walked out of that courtroom even more humiliated than before. There was going to be a murder trial . . . and it wouldn’t involve just a small group of random strangers staring at me and wondering how the crap I didn’t know . . . it would be the whole town . . . and eventually, the entire country.

     

That night as I lay in my bed, I replayed all the questions over and over in my mind. How I wished I could change my story. I could pretend I knew about the affair; I could say that Emmett had been at home fighting for me that night before he left. I longed to tell the town that I wasn’t as stupid as I looked. I had known there was something wrong, and I had been trying hard to figure it out . . . but I just hadn’t put all the facts together in time. That night, I drowned in my tears as I considered how to change my past to make myself feel better about it . . . and to reassure myself that I wasn’t dumb.

    

The next morning, I kept having this urge to go downtown again. Ha! That was the last thing I wanted to do. In the days that followed Emmett’s murder, I had placed holds on all of our accounts, but I had yet to go down to the bank to make sure everything was secure. It was just another thing on my “to do” list that I had purposefully avoided in a feeble attempt to pretend that none of what I was going through was real.

   

By late afternoon, I knew I couldn’t fight the urge any longer, and I made the decision to drive down to our bank. I was nervous the whole way there. I didn’t want to talk about financial matters; I didn’t want to see people who knew Emmett at the bank . . . and I certainly didn’t want to go into a public place where more people would find reasons to remind me of how stupid I was.

   

I parked my car outside the bank and walked inside. I asked to speak with the man who had helped me place holds on all of our accounts. The minute we sat down in the privacy of his office, he said, “I was literally going to call you this afternoon. Earlier today, another woman was in here trying to make withdrawals from these accounts. I am so glad you came in today.”

   

My heart dropped. My mind freaked out. I wasn’t safe . . . in any way. Now, not even my bank accounts seemed to provide me any security. My fear of the unknown seemed to be multiplying and invading every dark corner I had forgotten to check.

     

That day, I closed every single account. Maybe that was irrational . . . maybe I was just being stupid like everyone seemed to think I was, but in that moment . . . it was my only option. I had to protect the assets I had left. For me, that meant making some big decisions in literally just a few seconds. I had felt inspired to go to the bank that day, but I hadn’t realized that it was going to result in my finding even more reasons to doubt the world.

When I look back on those dark moments . . . it was like I was living in a haze. I thought I had made it past the hardest days . . . but then, something else would come along to pull me down even more than before. The force that tugged me down was stronger than just a sensation of falling. It felt like a darkness blacker than anything I had felt on earth was trying to suck me in.

    

The scientific definition of gravity is: the powerful force that attracts a body to the earth. During those dark days, it wasn’t just the force of gravity that held me, and it wasn’t just grounding me. No, it was a power that was pulling me down . . . down . . . down.

   

Everything I once thought was a given, seemed so uncertain. I was scared. I was stupid, and I was alone. My bank accounts were not safe . . . and somewhere between teaching my children how to properly grieve and function in their lives . . . we were going to have to live through a murder trial. I was going to have to take that stand again and tell the world all that I didn’t know. All those things I once counted on to be constants in my life . . .  now seemed to be not only undependable . . . but worse than that, they were failing me.

I wasn’t even sure if the natural law of Gravity was going to be a constant for me . . .  because I could not see where on the earth I was still connected to it.

There is a force in this world even stronger than the constant force of gravity. It is a darkness that swirls around us . . . and even when we feel we have been pulled farther down than we knew was possible . . . it tries to wrench us under even further. I was surrounded by darkness on those days, and there was no place inside of me that remembered that God was still there. I did not feel Him by my side as I sat at the bank and was told that I couldn’t even depend upon my bank accounts. I didn’t feel Him give me a voice as my heart pounded out of my chest so forcefully that I couldn’t breathe while I was speaking the truth on that witness stand. The truth was destroying me inside . . . but there was nowhere to hide from it. I felt completely alone and I felt scared to death.

     

The darkness of this world seemed to be chasing me, knowing I was weak, and I was buying every word of it. I didn’t know how to keep ahead of the darkness. Fear was my motivating factor. It drove me to arise in the morning and it kept me from falling asleep at night. I could barely eat, and I had to force myself to move. Every day, I spent hours replaying the questions that were asked as I sat on the witness stand, and I knew that the questions that would be written for me at the actual trial would be even more difficult. They would pull me down with even greater force.

   

Every single day . . . being pulled down . . . thinking; rehearsing; practicing; hallucinating . . . and feeling scared. But most of all feeling Humiliated.

There are many powers that pull at us: Hate, Pride, Fear, Jealousy, Anger, Doubt, Rage, Humiliation, Despair, Pain, Rejection, Doubt, and they are all powers of darkness. Darkness is always waiting to grab us in its clutches; it always knows just how to make its lonely walk . . . and it has the ability to make us long to join it for that walk. It waits for us along all the roads we tread and at all the crossroads where we stand alone. It is not willing to sacrifice for us, but it is willing to sacrifice US for the power it wants to hold over us. Satan is not constant. … He doesn’t stick around when we reach our breaking point. He walks away when he gets us to the spot where we cannot stand, and he hopes we will forget the light we once had. More than anything, he wants us to give up and forget. He willingly takes control when we feel we have lost it. The only thing that is constant when he steers our course . . . is our ultimate defeat. He promises nothing more than his own gain.

   

However, we don’t have to choose to fall under his power . . . for he will only bring us down. We are the ones who hold true strength . . . and darkness can only control us if we give our power away.

       

God’s love for us is the constant we must seek. Its power is the force that can keep us grounded. Even in the moments when we stand and feel that all the truths we once thought were consistent are falling through our grasp . . . He is still there. I didn’t let Him comfort me in that courtroom that day. I let other forces pull me down. I let fear take control of my body in every car I rode in and in every elevator I exited. I sat at that bank feeling alone and overwhelmed by darkness.

     

Gravity is a force that exists no matter what we do. We can try to fight it . . . we can try to pretend that its power cannot control us . . .  but ultimately, no matter how many times we try to leap off that barn’s rooftop . . . we will fall to the ground. No matter how many times we try to fly out of that tree . . . we will hit the grass. It was created for us for that purpose, and our questioning its existence, will in no way change its power. It will always be there.

   

However, our Heavenly Father is just as constant as gravity. He is always there. He walks with us into all the ‘banks’ that threaten our peace and make us feel like our security is about to be destroyed. He helps us close the accounts when we are not safe. He wipes our tears when the humiliation of the world tries to make us feel like we are stupid, and He is holding us up when we feel we cannot take another breath . . . as we speak the truth.

   

I have no idea why I wouldn’t allow myself to see His power in those moments, but I could easily feel the darkness. Looking back, I guess I needed to forget His love momentarily so that I would be driven to remember how to fight for it again. I thought I was walking all alone. The days when, in my mind, I was traveling solo . . . served as anchors to tug at me and remind me to seek His light again.

     

There are powers that pull us to and fro; there are forces that try to bind us. When we seek for the power that comes from the goodness inside of us . . . and from the Love of our Savior, that is when our paths seem to be surrounded by the hope we seek. Darkness will never bring us peace; it will never leave us full of happiness.

   

My hope in myself was lost; my hope in this world seemed to be impossible to find . . . but somehow, it found me. I didn’t seek it on those days full of darkness . . . but it was still there.

     

Gravity will hold you anchored to the earth, but only Christ will keep you grounded as you travel along life’s roads. Let the power of His mercy be the one that anchors your ship when the storms of the sea try to shake you. Let the gravity of His love hold you to the truths that only He can teach. You are smart. You are enough. You are the you He always wanted you to be. You have the power to choose the light.

   

Don’t let your fear of walking alone keep you from taking the next step. You are not alone. He is there. His power is real, and He holds it just for you. Gravity may bring you down, but Christ’s love can lift you higher.

Gravity by Abbey Roll (my little sister)