My son’s savage death threatened to overshadow the goodness of his life. I couldn’t let that happen.


Brian’s

Roses



by RACHEL MUHA; Westerville, Oh.



One-sixty-five McDowell Avenue. It’s the address of an old gray house in a middle-class neighborhood in Steubenville, Ohio. The neighborhood is a little run down now but it is still called La Belle because it was once so beautiful.

My 18-year-old son, Brian, told me about the house when he came home from his freshman year of college early in May two years ago. He and his brother Chris, 20, were both students at Franciscan University about a mile away from the La Belle neighborhood. Chris intended to live at home that summer, but Brian decided to go back to Steubenville for five weeks to take some extra courses. This time, though, instead of staying in a dorm, he was excited about living off campus. "Some seniors are moving out so there’s room for me in the house, Mom," Brian told me. "It has a great big front porch with columns—you’d like it."

I had hoped Brian too would be home all summer. I kept busy teaching at a nearby home-school cooperative I’d help set up, but I loved having my sons around. Brian and Chris were incredibly close, both honor students and athletes, both generous and thoughtful. The three of us had long conversations, ate out and went to church together. Brian wanted to be a doctor, Chris was thinking about the priesthood. I thought to myself that Brian would help heal bodies while Chris would help heal souls.

Brian’s excitement about moving off campus turned out to be contagious. In the late afternoon of May 31, 1999, we kidded around as we loaded canned goods and household supplies into his Chevy Blazer. Chris gave Brian a big bear hug, then I too hugged my younger son and waved good-bye. The next morning a bouquet of white roses arrived with a card Brian had written before he left town the previous day: "Mom—Just wanted to say hello even though I’m away. Love, Bri."

I buried my face in the soft blossoms. At that moment I had no idea that my son was no longer alive.

The night before, Brian had arrived at 165 McDowell Avenue, unloaded his groceries, and fallen asleep on the living room couch while watching a movie. His friend, Aaron Land, 20, was asleep in the next room. At approximately 4:30 A.M. three intruders broke in, boys about the same age as my son, drunk and high on crack cocaine. They beat Brian and Aaron savagely with a .44-caliber gun, forced them into Brian’s Blazer and drove to a hillside about 20 minutes away. There they shot each of the boys in the head and left their bodies in a thicket. When the killers were apprehended several days later, the only reason they gave for their crime was that they "were looking for somebody to kill." One of those "somebodys" was everything to me.

When the police called to tell us Brian and Aaron were missing, Chris and I immediately drove to Steubenville. Chris and Brian’s father flew in from Texas, and people came from miles around to join in the search. The boys’ bodies were found four days later. Chris started sobbing and I held him close. Even when my own tears stopped, the weight in my heart felt like it would never lighten.

On June 5 Chris and I and dozens of relatives, friends and students climbed the hillside to the spot where the boys’ bodies had been found beneath a bush of white wild roses in full bloom. Together we prayed the Lord’s Prayer. I sensed that a darkened area to my right was where my son had been slain. I went to it and fell to my knees, kissing the ground where he’d taken his final breath. "Brian," I sobbed, "come back, Bri." As I got to my feet again, someone handed me an armful of white blossoms he’d cut from the rosebush, and I took them home and put them in water, vainly hoping they would never fade but knowing that, like Brian, they would be gone far too soon.

Over a thousand people attended Brian’s funeral later that week. Many more wrote me letters or called to offer their condolences. One minute I’d think of how much love Brian had brought into the world, the next I’d think of how his life was snuffed out so quickly, so casually. I struggled with my deepening grief. Why, I asked myself, did I ever let him go to that house?

I’d been told the trial would not happen for another year. A year? What would I do in the meantime? How would I cope with the emotions that battled within me?

Trying to ease his grief, Chris resumed his summer classes, but I could not bring myself to go back to teaching youngsters as bright and full of promise as my son had been. I spent my time staring out the window, endlessly pacing the house, or visiting the cemetery, wishing I could rip up the grass and bring my son back. I couldn’t look at Brian’s photograph without crying. Over and over I thought of how scared Brian must have been that terrible night, jolted out of his dreams into a fight for his life.

Several weeks after the funeral the police told me their investigation was complete. I could go into 165 McDowell and retrieve Brian’s belongings. The thought of entering that house made my heart feel raw again. Yet I ached to hold anything Brian had touched that night.

On a hazy afternoon in late June, Chris and I walked up the steps to 165 McDowell Avenue. I stepped into a room with fading wallpaper and overstuffed furniture. Brian’s things were still where he’d left them, but the walls, floors and upholstery had been cleaned. No one would ever suspect the unspeakable crime that had happened there. I sat on the cushions where Brian had fallen asleep. At the end of the sofa were his sandals where he’d kicked them off. Next to them sat his duffel bag and backpack. Each item seemed to cry Brian’s name.

I went into the kitchen, where the bags of canned goods we’d loaded into the Blazer were still on the counter. Reaching into a sack, I pulled out a "recipe" I’d playfully written how to make spaghetti sauce:

1. Open the jar of sauce.

2. Put it in a saucepan.

3. Add a little water if you think it is too thick.

4. Heat slowly.

5. Enjoy.

I held the note against my cheek, then tucked it in my purse. If only my son had never stepped inside this place where his first night became his last. From the porch, I watched Chris loading Brian’s stuff into the car. Some young people strolled past on the sidewalk. "That’s the house where the boys who were killed lived," one of them said. They turned to look, and I quickly drew back inside. Was this how my son and his friend would be remembered? As victims of a horrific crime instead of as the incredibly special young men they were?

Back in my own home, the image of 165 McDowell haunted me. One afternoon, as the last golden rays of sunlight melted into the soft tones of twilight, I pulled one of Brian’s favorite sweaters out of his duffel bag and pressed my face into it. As I did, I saw his eyes sparkle, full of life, as he talked about the old house, saw him stopping at the florist, thinking of me even in the midst of his excitement about his first "real place." I envisioned him sitting on the couch gazing out the window at the streets of La Belle, looking forward to all the good times he’d have at 165 McDowell Avenue.


Buy the house.


The idea rose clear and strong out of those vivid images of Brian. Buy the house and make it a symbol of life, rather than death.

When Chris came home that night, we sat down together and I took his hand. "Maybe this sounds strange," I said, " but I want to buy the house at 165 McDowell. I want it to be a safe haven—a place of hope instead of despair."

"Yeah, Mom," Chris said. "Let’s do it."

I had no idea where I’d get the money, but the next morning I called a realtor in Steubenville. "I’m interested in the house at 165 McDowell Avenue," I said. Before long the phone rang. "I’m sorry, Mrs. Muha," the realtor said. "The owner’s not selling."

"Please call him back," I said. "Tell him I’m the mother of one of the murdered boys."

Soon the realtor called again. The owner agreed to sell the house to me for less than its appraised value. Within the next two weeks I was able to secure the necessary loans, and the closing was three weeks later. By this time I had more ideas. I would let seminary students live at 165 McDowell; their "rent" would be their daily prayers. I even came up with a name for 165 McDowell. It would be called Divine Mercy House.

In August two student priests from Africa, Father Leo and Father Godfrey, moved in. Several hundred students filled the front porch, the yard and the streets as Father Leo and Father Godfrey blessed the house and neighborhood. The police opened a new substation in La Belle. And a "Neighbors Who Care" block association was started whose members walked daily around the neighborhood praying and building a sense of community. I felt the heaviness in my heart begin to ease.

On what would have been Brian’s nineteenth birthday, July 23, 1999, Chris and I and about 50 others again climbed the hill to where Brian and Aaron had died. A five-foot-tall wooden cross, painted gold, now stood at the spot in their memory. In my heart rang the words from Saint Paul’s letter to the Romans: Hate what is evil; cling to what is good. Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.

The shoots I’d brought home from that white rose bush on the hill rooted, and in the fall I planted them in my backyard by the kitchen window. By the next spring there was a beautiful profusion of glorious white roses. Brian’s roses.


 


This story from Guideposts magazine (July 2001). For more inspiration, visit Guideposts.org

Thanks for sharing Steve what a wonderful story to start the week off

WOW.

great story steve, thank you for posting