If Heaven Was a Mile Away

This is the story about a beautiful biracial girl that lived a lifetime, in the short time she was on this earth. Her name was Jessica. On September fifth two thousand seven, a masked robber kicked in her back door. He made his way into her bedroom, where she and a friend were watching a movie. The man told both of them to freeze. The eyewitness to her murder said Jessica screamed. Then the man took aim at her heart, shot, and killed her right there. Jessica would forever be eighteen years old.

I am Jessica’s Grandmother. The things that I am going to share with you are true, factual events, as they unfolded, so that I can tell not my story, but Jessica s. She was born on a cold September morning in Denver Colorado. Yes, I said cold; there was snow on the ground. When I look back and reflect on the years few as they were, I cannot help but wonder what I could have done to make this tragic event never happen. None of us has the power to change or control our future. We can make better choices and hope that in doing so we are able to sway the powers that be. Live a life of peace and hopefully find love and contentment, in a world that can be very cold and cruel.

Going back to the beginning or what I believe to be the start of it all, I have wondered how a mother could both love and resent a child at the same time. This is where it began and all I know is to tell her story, I have to open Pandora’s Box. Jessica was born into her all white family on September twentieth nineteen eighty eight. She was a joy and a blessing from the start, she changed our lives. She showed us that you don’t judge a man by the color of his skin, and that family is the most important thing we have. I want to tell the world how much we loved this beautiful little girl. I can’t find words to express the love she brought to our family. Jessica was taken from us several years ago and we still cry for her every day. We are devastated, broken, and nothing can fix it. When Jessica was murdered it was like a dark cloud came down and engulfed our family. We are trapped in our own purgatory.

Her Mother was addicted to alcohol and drugs. It would later become what Jessica referred to as her mother’s demons. Jessica wrote about this in her journal about the feelings and thoughts that she had concerning her mother. She told her “I love you because you are my mother, but you ruined my life!” That’s how she felt. Jessica never got to meet her father. Her mother was not sure who her father was. This made her feel angry and somehow less a person. You can’t be at peace until you know where you came from. She always wondered who he was and if he knew about her. She spent hours searching for a man on the internet that she never met. Her grandfather and I told her that her mother believed a man named David Thatcher was her father. He didn’t know about her. Constance never told him that she was pregnant. Jessica told us that she was so angry and hurt. This was the start of a downhill descent for Jessica.

Let’s go back, way back to nineteen seventy five when Constance was a little girl. It was a time when Constance was innocent and pure, baby dolls, roller skates, flying a kite with her brother and learning to ride her bicycle with her daddy. She was ten years old, season after season year after year; endless summers playing with her friends; the good times in our lives. She grew up in a family that loved and protected her from another side of life that we learn about all too soon. We grow up and are faced with obstacles that we have to cross, go around or just walk right into them. Constance walked or should I say ran right into an obstacle that began a cycle of self-destruction and ultimately led to the death of her daughter Jessica . The price she has paid has been very high indeed. As her mother, I hurt for her. But I know this is one thing I can’t fix. She will have to live with the consequences of the decisions she made.

We are living in Houston Texas, the year is nineteen eighty eight. We get up early every morning before we go to work, driving the streets of Houston looking for Constance, for a sign of her car parked in a motel where she and other addicts would group together in a room. They would spend hours on end smoking the demon crack cocaine. Somewhere along the way, Constance conceived Jessica . We came here from Florida looking to make a much-needed change. At first, everything was good and we found good jobs. We were happy about the decision we had made to move here. Houston Texas a big exciting city with opportunity and everything you can imagine good and bad. Constance chose the bad. It starts out innocently enough but becomes a demon on your back you can’t get free of. An obsession that controls every waking minute of your life and it grows like a weed shutting out all the good until there is nothing left.