Yesterday I painted one of my nails a shade of green. I was looking for emerald green, but my salon didn’t have the color. So, what you see is what I got. But it’s not the color, it’s the significance of the color that counts. I wear the color in honor of my niece – KC McClanahan.
My niece was murdered on November 2, 2017 by her husband – my nephew, the son of my brother. My heart has been heavy since I first learned of it. The pain is not only the loss of her life, but the collateral damage to the family – both sides. She left behind two children, siblings, parents, aunts and uncles, and other family and friends. The damage is just as deep on his side. We all suffer from this horrible act. Emotions run from anger and rage, to shock and quiet disbelief.
How could this happen? More, importantly – why?
My nephew has a history of domestic abuse. He has been exposed to it growing up in the home with his mother and step-father. I have come to know it explains the number of women in his life – they were lucky to escape. Unfortunately, KC was not.
But he is not alone in this ugly event. Yearly, according to the Centers for Disease Control, in the United States 4.8 million women suffer intimate partner related physical assaults and rapes. The CDC analyzed the murders of women in 18 states from 2003 to 2014, finding a total of 10,018 deaths. Of those, 55 percent were intimate partner violence-related, meaning they occurred at the hands of a former or current partner or the partner’s family or friends. In 93 percent of those cases, the culprit was a current or former romantic partner. For more information, please see link below:
I’ve studied domestic violence and wrote my Master’s thesis on the subject. I have friends and other family members that have been exposed to domestic abuse – verbal, psychological and verbal. I have also had my share of abuse. I have yet to be related to someone that has died at the hands of a partner or loved one.
I am not going to provide a discourse on domestic violence, I simply want to share the hurt that comes to the family when it happens. The hurt I feel.
I am sad, in a state of quiet disbelief and I mourn the losses.
This act perpetrated by my nephew challenged my core system of belief.
I do not condone murder, and abhor domestic violence, intimate partner violence or simply put – beating and killing women.
I disdain all forms of psychological and financial abuse.
When my oldest nephew committed the act, it called into question what I believe and my core value of love for my family. We were not close, but he is my blood, the son of my brother. How could he do this to the family?
His future is not bright. He is in Utah which has a death penalty, the second highest number of executions nationally, and the only state left that uses the firing squad. I am told he has shut down and is on suicide watch.
When I am asked how I feel or what I think, I simply say he needs Jesus and I will pray for him and the family. I pray that for this part of his journey he will come to know Jesus and for the first time in his life, feel the peace and joy that comes from a personal relationship with Christ. I pray that he will feel some sense of remorse for what he has done.
And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you. Peter 5:10 (ESV)
I pray that God will restore, confirm, strengthen and re-establish this family back to a place of peace.
If you or a loved one or friend is experiencing domestic violence, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline –
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Teri McClanahan 