Death Pictures by Lynne Marien

Jim Marien - Gone But Never Forgotten

Admittedly, my pictures aren't as gruesome as they get. Jim was "only" shot in the chest. Imagine walking the walk toward the body. praying with all your might that the person you were about to identify was anyone - ANYONE - but your child. Imagine, if you can, how that phone call felt. ".was shot. it's bad. taken by helicopter. go quickly." Imagine how that race to the hospital felt, driving 100 mph and it seeming a snails pace. Imagine praying over and over and over, save my child.. Be there with him. Let us make it." And, imagine hearing the words, "we don't know if it is your son we have, the person who came in with a gunshot wound didn't make it. We did a lot of work on him to try to save him, so give us a half hour to clean him up before viewing." The wait is a lifeline. Maybe it isn't him. Oh, God, let it not be him. Make this go away. And, know that you too would pray it was anyone but your baby.

They come to get you. The corridor which leads toward the white curtain - and the body - is endless. Your feet are as lead. Your body shakes mean vibrations of apprehension and dread, because... They may not "know". but you do.

They warn you not to touch the body before you enter, and keep an arm anchored on yours to prevent the invasion of your touch upon their evidence.....

The curtain is pulled aside.

The scream inside your head as your body doubles over when you see the always beautifully manicured hair, now matted and limp. Grey green eyes, now closed to the world. gone. For there on the gurney is the lifeless form of your precious offering to the world. Still and grey and unsmiling. Instead surreal hoses extend from his mouth, distorting his face into one you hardly recognize as his. You - from someplace outside yourself - notice his arm hanging down past the sheet covering his already stiffening form, finger extended. And the pool of blood on the floor beneath it. You are taken from that room, dragged away, back to that place you waited so long ago. just moments ago. And, they bring in the group of teens who moments after you, had raced to be there. and their faces contort into agony as they look upon you, and know without words.

And, his face distorted is the nightmare you see each time you close your eyes. and you begin to pray never to sleep again. You will wake every night from then to the trial with this awful picture.

But, there will be other pictures. Pictures of what lay beneath that sheet. Pictures of what they did to the body to try to save the person. cut open and invaded. And pictures of all that was done to that body to find the bullet and the course that bullet took... Layer upon layer removed and photographed, to become part of the "records" . for viewing in court. A specimen. A slab of meet. A new nightmare.

But, there are far more gruesome nightmares, I know. I am the lucky one. Jim was "only" shot.

And I am lucky that at trial, we got to show other pictures of Jim. Jim alive and laughing. Jim with his friends, family. Always smiling. And, these are the pictures I choose to recall. have all around my house, an attempt, perhaps, to ward off those other pictures. And, mostly they do. But, now and then I close my eyes, and the picture of that body strikes like a blow. And, the scream begins anew. And my eyes fly open in a rejection of the reality.

If anyone wonders why I am a "weak anti" perhaps these "death pictures" explain. I understand. Yes, I oppose the death penalty, but I do so knowing. If that makes me weak in the eyes of some, so be it.

I cannot pretend not to understand that other side. I cannot pretend these pictures do not exist. And, I will not do so to further a cause. I know too much.

And, I stand here - this side of the DP fence - in spite of these pictures.
With compassion, and without rebuke, for those "pros" I do understand. those
who also live with "death pictures".