Simply Saskia! The 2nd MURDERVERSARY of my daughter, Saskia Savana Burke…

December 20, 2013

Inside our empty home now - are the ghosts of Christmas past.  The echoes of all the love and happiness that were…  There is no Christmas ‘present’ baby, and I can do no Christmas future!  My broken heart weeps for all the enjoyment that we two shared in creating all our traditions together.  What started out as what I wanted to give to my children, with you Saskia – this evolved into such a wondrous event each year!  How you delighted in hearing our Christmas stories when you were little!  As you got older and joined me in the search for the perfect ornament for this or that special thing to be remembered, we would spend the time working on our story for it together too…  The excitement and thrill you had in adding new ornaments to our family tree, in hearing the new stories added to all the old ones.  Kes just wanted to hang ornaments on the tree…  Ian was only anticipating gifts on Christmas morning, and could care less about this wonderful thing we did each year.

It was your enthusiasm and excitement for everything that I wanted to create and savor in life that is lost to me now.  Your ability to see things through my eyes and improve upon my vision, baby, I went from being all alone doing what I love to always sharing in it!  You changed my life Saskia, because you changed ME.  As you and I evolved together, you were healing me each step of the way from all the tragically pathetic things that had so wounded me in my past, all my failed hopes and dreams that weren’t possible for myself.  All those damages done to me in childhood, even the heartbreaking damage done to me by your father, in that he never could love me and be with me like THIS in life...

The deep and constant connectedness we had, on every level, from the beginning - it is something I NEED, not merely 'want'.  While all the others were nourishment to my life and made it so full, it was only ever YOU Saskia, who nourished my soul and made me complete...  You walked with me in this life, while all the others have only walked beside us.  And the lonely place I find myself in now, nothing will ever fill…  IT IS BECAUSE YOU WERE ‘OF’ ME, that you were so like me.  It is a spot no one else ever CAN fill my dear.  And I am sentenced, for the rest of my existence, to this terrible loneliness…  And these deeply traumatized feelings of HORROR attached to every aspect of this season now, removing all possibility to touching ANY of these things that are only PAINFUL ever again...  Time will not change, heal, nor lesson this pain. For this pain itself  IS - losing YOU Saskia.

This child of mine, didn’t get to live long enough to do all the many great things she was so destined to do.  She didn’t get to.   And so the many people who were destined to meet her, to know her, to be changed by the many remarkable things she was – they don’t know her.  She died without making all her monumental marks – and so it’s as if she didn’t exist…  But to me, she filled my entire existence!  And having her ripped from me, has left me gaping head to toe, hemorrhaging from these wounds with regret, with no repair...   Saskia filled me up and I overflowed with so much that I NEEDED, that I could not separate from HER to divorce, you see.  I couldn't imagine missing one moment, one thing with her!  There was not one sacrifice too big that I wouldn't make for her, to keep her constantly with me...

Saskia WAS the glue that held us all together.

I walked into life with so many hopes and dreams for myself.  I wanted to fall in love and grow old with a wonderful man who was in love with me too and would cherish me as I did him.  I wanted a big beautiful church wedding, with all our family and friends and a great reception – the whole big event I had been looking forward to since I was little, and Walt Disney promised that one day prince charming would come to love me – and take me away from my terribly wicked life...  I wanted to step forward with my husband ‘in life’ and create a loving and happy family and a nice little home filled with my lifetime’s memories…  I met a boy, and fell in love.  But he didn’t love me back.  Not the way I wanted him to.  Never the way I deserved.  He was never ‘in love’ with me, but could only love the many wonderful and creative qualities ‘about’ me…   And I became trapped by him, because I was so in love with him.  He never proposed to me, so I never got that precious moment, nor a treasured engagement ring.  I never got that wedding I had been planning and looking forward to, never wore that dress I bought in my senior year because it was perfect…   When he finally did ‘marry’ me, I didn’t get to walk down that isle with my daddy – he was dead.   And the wedding was a mere formality so I could get health insurance, just a sad pathetic joke of a Vegas ceremony…  I did have my children, and with them I finally got to live as I had hoped.  We bought a little house in Michigan, then another when we moved to California.  And after searching long and hard for two years, we finally bought my dream home to put down our roots to raise the children in, and grow old in…  But towards the end of only 10 years, the schools became infiltrated with illegal aliens and gangs, and our wonderful little area became crime ridden.  So we were forced to move again, and leave that dream behind too, for what I thought was the education and safety of my children…  We stood at the crossroads then of divorce – but as it always was with my Saskia, we discussed all of this and decided on a plan...  And we came here, to Murrieta, with a ten-year plan to see Kes graduated.

Saskia’s Diary, 2008

“We moved to Murrieta, CA in 2008.  Momma called our new house ‘the ten year plan’.  Momma and Daddy are staying together instead of getting divorced, so the three of us children can all graduate from High School.  I picked out our house today, because I knew it had so much potential for Momma’s artistic eyes.  She and I plan to make it spectacular, so that in 10 years when we sell it – we can make enough profit after splitting it with dad in the divorce, to open our own business together!  I want to take business management in college, and Momma said it is up to me to decide what we will do.  I was thinking maybe a wedding planner business, because I so love weddings – and Momma is so great with all the details…”

My hopes and dreams, didn’t work out.  Pieces and parts are all I got in life.  Saskia was my biggest piece, the very best part in all of it.  And now she’s gone.  And the plan for what comes next, for me, is gone without her.  IT WAS OUR PLAN!  And now, I’m still in the trap with the man who was her father, but never husband.  With only one child now, because Ian left over a year ago – he is, after all, his fathers’ son.  Weak, selfish, thoughtless to those who have loved him and incapable of really being ‘in relationship’ with others…

I stand here with the hand of the one child I have left, the only piece I have left of my entire life…  We will have to sell the house now, what Simpson has done has financially ruined us as well.  And I’m losing this home, where the very last memories of my Saskia dwell. 

For all my disappointments in life, Saskia more than made up for them.  And towards the end, as my Saskia was in fact becoming a young woman, and did experience what it is to fall in LOVE and suffer the pain that it didn’t work out?  She really saw me as the woman I was for so many years, choosing to stay for her in something that left me so pained and empty. 

And in those last two weeks of Saskia’s life, she implored me to let go of the ten-year plan; “You don’t have to suffer anymore more for us Momma.  I’m graduating, and Kessa never needed dad to begin with – she’s always been ‘just yours’!  You deserve to be happy momma, and it’s time for you to do this.  Divorce dad, and go start your life with Kim now!  I will be graduated, and I’ll go to MSU and be roommates with Lynnette (Kim’s daughter).  And we’ll be close until I graduate college, and then we can all move together and start our business Momma…  Go Momma, and be happy!”

So, I will finally file for divorce the beginning of next year…  Two years longer than I had intended, because Simpson Murdered Saskia…

As I stand here, in the aftermath of that life, looking at all that I did to affect it to BE?  Knowing the payoff I was always working TOWARDS for all this time, effort and work - no longer exists?  I’m only filled with extreme sadness and so much regret for it all.   I hate the lifestyle change this NEW LIFE has brought to me.  In my home that was always so filled with happy children, where I basked in the glorious atmosphere and the wonderfully chaotic fullness of it all – I’m trapped alone in the stark raving quiet and isolation of it all now.  All alone, for the first time since I birthed my children!   Just as you will never be with me to enjoy it, I will never have any of this again either baby.  Murder took so much from us, you see…

And leaves me with all the empty lonely hours without you Saskia!

And this man I am leaving behind  - 30 years he took from me already…  From the girl I was, through the woman I became, for all my motherhood, and until the end I have been with this one male.  It’s hard to look at all these years, for really, they were my whole life…  To see it was a mistake from the start, and so, many things were simply more mistakes made from the original.

It is with such clarity I see it all now, looking at this life I built from the ground up.  These things of Hope, Will, Strength and Desire – were the impassioned driving forces inside me that were in fact so exceptional that it was I who changed the others.  Creating them to be so much more than they ever could have been.

I didn’t just love this boy I once met, I fell in love with him…  And it was through the intensity of my love for him, that I built him up to be more than he ever had the potential to really be.  I created for him a family, and a home!  I so lovingly and morally raised his children, with attention given to every detail in their creation, to be incredibly remarkable people in the end.  Tending and transforming his home too, to be an environment beyond compare.  Not only increasing the ‘monetary’ worth of each residence, but creating each place to be so uniquely comfortable that it brought in so many others to seek refuge with us.  In doing all this, I built HIS life.

While at the same time, filling him up with my love and producing a drive inside him to push forth in this life to HAVE all that I continued offering him.  But, it was always I who was connecting all this to him.  And when I ceased connecting anything, he found himself so disconnected from it all…

I stood strong, and became stronger from all the battles in life, while he hid from the discomfort of it.  So heartbreakingly sad, all that I gave and how much he took.  All the loving effort I put into so many years hoping to forge a deep connection, all the hope I had that it could be something so beautiful and amazing, was so wasted on this individual who never could do any of this from the start.

We just do, still exist in this aftermath of that life.  Unfortunately still indebted for our mistakes.  I am forced, by both love and guilt, to live for the child who claims only me as parent.  And by default, Paul must continue ‘paying’ for this existence, as he only ever has. 

For all my childhood, I felt alone and invisible.  My Desires and Hopes for family, love, happiness. It's what I wanted most, ALL I EVER WANTED! A connected and loving, warm and joyous, shared and full existence…  I don’t desire anything different now, hope for anything less now – but that’s exactly what’s left to me now.  Nothing.

And as I stand here in this place where Saskia’s strong presence can be felt all around, I think of her.  Magical and perfect.  Saskia's words for describing so many things in her life...  Christmas, Halloween, Prom, Birthday parties - stepping outside the tent to greet the morning when we camped.  She said them so often, because this is how she really felt about her life – it was magical and perfect!   But these are my words to describe Saskia in relation to ‘myself’, and my ‘life’.  Having her in my life made everything to me so magical and perfect…

Standing in sadness with the wreck Simpson has made of everything…  You are not here Saskia, and I am not who I was. 

I grew you inside me, and that umbilical cord never separated between us...  Saskia, you held my soul in the palm of your hands, and took it with you - where you are now.  The HORROR IN THAT MOMENT of seeing you there on floor, in knowing that losing YOU - IS LOSING MYSELF!  Profound Horror and overwhelming Pain, agonizing Torment and infinite Regret, screaming Terror and complete Sadness are my constant companions now – so far removed from the happy and joyous companion I had for too little time…   In losing YOU, losing all our hopes and dreams, and then all the people we had planned to be with because of Murder too – those things of magic and perfection are gone.

People want and expect too much from me.  Wanting me to accept the loss of what I’ve treasure most in my life for your depth, and expecting me to find contentment or even happiness in the shallowness that is left.  I started out in this shallowness in life, Saskia, and it was my craving for so much more that led me to create all this for myself.  Having you, and sharing all aspects of my life in a real depth and connectedness - that was so beautiful and amazing to me!  The irreparable psychological damage done in seeing you destroyed in front of me has forever truly broken me…  Standing here in the shallowness of life, once more after you, how could I care to repeatedly touch this enormous pain inside me?  How could I bear touching this horror…  It’s enough – that I carry all this inside me each moment.  I don’t care to poke at it, and cause more agony to myself.

Such foolish thoughts that time could heal any of this.  So stupid to think there is any possible way to get beyond the absolute horror of this.  People ‘desire’ to me to do this, but then, I desire ‘you’, and both these desires are as equally lost in this life…  For it is a TRAUMA to my soul – having witnessed WHAT SIMPSON DID, and then being beaten-up and beaten down by the outside world that will never understand THIS, every since HE DID THIS TO YOU SASKIA…  For all my tender and loving feelings for YOU, my child - I am wrecked now.

…  I AM SHATTERED, and fragile, and just never will BE what everyone expects.  It is an insulting insistence that I ‘find peace’ after losing you in the way Simpson DESTROYED you, or that I ‘move on’!  I know exactly what ‘moving on’ means, baby…  I’ve already done THIS before with my dad...  But I could never do this with YOU!  Pack up all of your memories, all of your things, and put them away – not touching any piece of YOU and trying to keep you out of my mind for all the days I live…  LETTING YOU DIE IN A DIFFERENT WAY UNTO MYSELF  -  IS the only way to move on.   Even if I wanted to Saskia, I am completely incapable of this.  For all that you brought to my life, the extent of what you have meant to me?  It’s impossible for me to not miss you in every single thing I do!

I am forced to accept this loneliness, the psychological torture and torment, the Horror and the Pain.  Simpson failed to kill me too, and put me out of all this suffering…  He left me alive, to live with it instead.  And because of this, I am what I am now…

AND MY RAGING HORROR CONSTANTLY SCREAMS!  I stand in the terror still, of not knowing WHERE and HOW my Saskia is…  A Mother’s Terror that will never leave me!  I try to push past Saskia’s screams to hear her voice once more in my mind, but the last sound is still what I hear the clearest!  I have no choice but to keep so many pictures of Saskia close, to help push my minds last images of her mutilated body away too… 

Saskia was all the warmth and loving I craved in life!  Her tender little hand, always on me. She didn't just need to be close, she was always leaning or laying on me, her head or hand on me somewhere... My arms were always around her, my hand filled with hers. Our quick, witty, and sarcastic minds always melded - as if always sharing a secret or joke that no one else got or understood. It's such horror, not having you like this each moment still!

Even on those rare occasions when Saskia did spend the night away, she would call so many times.  First, because she of course forgot something.  Always imploring me to bring it, but always admitting too she probably did it on purpose so she could get one more hug and kiss!  And, because we were 'like creatures', we had our little secret 'codes'.  Because she was OCD like me, she never COULD bring herself to eat at other people’s houses.  Not knowing if someone had washed their hands, or cleaned the surface of the dirty kitchen before they started cooking - the fear of dirt and germs stopped her cold in her tracks from eating away from home!  And sometimes, she just wasn't comfortable being away from home, but she didn't want her friends to be upset with her for this.  So she would call, and ask how I WAS DOING.  This was her 'code' for I WANT TO COME HOME...  So, I would then make up a story for an excuse as to why it might be good for her to come home if she can, and she would share this excuse with her friend, and I would go get her...

Saskia was a Momma's girl.  And I was a Saskia's Momma.

And I miss US every quiet lonely single second...