As the New Year quickly approaches, there are many in the Chicago land area that were

not filled with holiday cheer, and most certainly were not looking to turn the page to a new year.

No, instead, they were either learning that their precious child had been killed by some

lunatic who dressed like a clown, or they were waiting to find out if their missing child

was a victim of the murderous clown.

Being a parent in either of these positions leaves these absolutely devastated human beings

trying to somehow figure out how to cope with the soul-crushing reality that they have lost their

child in the worst way imaginable. Now, I've touched upon this concept previously,

which is how exactly does one go about trying to live a life that now has a massive,

gaping hole that can never be filled? The second guessing must never end. Could I

have done something differently? Did I fail my child by allowing them to be in a position

where the thief of lives could snatch them up? Was I not paying enough attention to the details

of my child's life? How do I get out of bed in the morning? How do I pretend to care about the

meaningless job that I'm expected to go to on a daily basis? Will I feel better when justices

serve and the man responsible for my child's death is punished? And I don't know the answers,

and I don't believe that anyone does. Because quite simply, there are no answers.

I suppose the best one can hope for is to try and take it day by day and hope that the gut-wrenching

pain subsides over time, but it's a wound that will never heal, a living hell that you will have

to deal with every morning when you wake from sleep, hoping that it was all just a nightmare,

but knowing that it wasn't, and feeling deep in your heart, that there is no end to this pain,

ever. So yeah, January 1st of 1979 rang in hollow for many, as they like the rest of the world

would have to wait and see what the fate of John Wayne Gacy would be.

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