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everybody's somebody's baby
Feb. 3rd, 2007 01:23 amThis article is out of date by now; I heard on the radio just as I was turning up the hill to my building that they've now confirmed the identities of the bodies found in the Subaru in Loudon County, near the state line -- and it is, in fact, the two Rachels, who have been missing for two weeks.
What got me about the news reports of the ongoing search all this time was what nobody was saying. Two pretty rich young white girls are missing, I mean, of course the news is going to pick that up; but they kept on saying how the families were concerned about their daughters' mental states, in particular because of a diary entry in which the older girl wrote that she wanted to be buried next to her true love. And then on and on about mental state and wanting to know the girls were safe and etc. etc. etc.
Me personally? I hear about a pair of kids who disappear together, and then I hear that one of them wanted to be buried next to her true love, and then they turn up dead, and I think it's a no-brainer how they got that way. And if it had been a boy and a girl, I'd probably have thought it was a garden-variety tragic teenage suicide pact. But then, if it had been a boy and a girl, I have strong suspicions that someone would have speculated that her "true love" comment referred to him. So without knowing anything at all about these families (except that both live in suburban Maryland), it's hard not to think their concern about the girls' mental states stemmed from their awareness that the girls were in love with each other, and from there it's hard not to think that's what these poor kids were running away from.
Which makes me feel sadder for the kids, I think, than if it had been a garden-variety boy-girl doomed-love suicide pact.
None of that, of course, changes the fact that the other thing I know about these families is that each has just lost a daughter. Hug your children tonight.
What got me about the news reports of the ongoing search all this time was what nobody was saying. Two pretty rich young white girls are missing, I mean, of course the news is going to pick that up; but they kept on saying how the families were concerned about their daughters' mental states, in particular because of a diary entry in which the older girl wrote that she wanted to be buried next to her true love. And then on and on about mental state and wanting to know the girls were safe and etc. etc. etc.
Me personally? I hear about a pair of kids who disappear together, and then I hear that one of them wanted to be buried next to her true love, and then they turn up dead, and I think it's a no-brainer how they got that way. And if it had been a boy and a girl, I'd probably have thought it was a garden-variety tragic teenage suicide pact. But then, if it had been a boy and a girl, I have strong suspicions that someone would have speculated that her "true love" comment referred to him. So without knowing anything at all about these families (except that both live in suburban Maryland), it's hard not to think their concern about the girls' mental states stemmed from their awareness that the girls were in love with each other, and from there it's hard not to think that's what these poor kids were running away from.
Which makes me feel sadder for the kids, I think, than if it had been a garden-variety boy-girl doomed-love suicide pact.
None of that, of course, changes the fact that the other thing I know about these families is that each has just lost a daughter. Hug your children tonight.
