Not long ago, a waitress approached my table and asked, “Are you Jan?”
When I said yes, she explained that she’d recently seen me on a television program about my husband’s murder which took place many years ago. With sincere compassion, she said, “I’m so sorry for what you went through. You’re a strong person.”
Her kindness was genuine, and I appreciated it.
But moments like this reveal something important about life after homicide.
For the person approaching you, the story is new. They may have just watched a program, read an article, or seen a news segment about the trial. In their mind, the tragedy feels immediate and recent.
For the survivor, however, that event sits at the beginning of a long and complicated timeline.
Between the crime and the present may lie decades of living: relocations, illnesses faced and survived, children born or adopted, careers rebuilt, new relationships formed, and the slow, difficult work of making meaning out of loss.
When someone suddenly speaks about the homicide as if it just happened, time can briefly implodes.
Psychologists sometimes describe this as a collapse of timelines. The viewer is responding to a story they encountered yesterday. The survivor has likely lived through many years since the crime occurred.
The result can feel momentarily disorienting.
Not offensive.
Not painful in the way it once was.
Just… unexpected.
Loss of Control
There is another complication that sometimes arises for survivors. What if the person sitting beside us when this recognition happens knows nothing about the homicide in our past?
Perhaps it is a new colleague, a neighbor, or someone we have recently begun dating. Perhaps we have chosen—very intentionally—not to share that part of our history yet.
When a stranger suddenly approaches with sympathy, it can unintentionally reveal a deeply personal chapter of our lives before we are ready to discuss it. This places the survivor in an awkward and layered position: responding graciously to someone’s compassion while also protecting their own privacy.
A brief answer does not necessarily mean the survivor wishes to talk further. It may simply mean they are choosing—wisely—to keep that chapter private in that moment.
Every survivor has the right to decide when, how, and with whom they share their story. We are not celebrities.
Homicide survivors encounter these moments in different ways. Someone may recognize their name from a news article about the trial. A neighbor may remember a televised news report. Occasionally a stranger approaches with sympathy after hearing the story somewhere.
These interactions are almost always well-intended. People are trying to express compassion.
But they are meeting us through one chapter of our lives, often the chapter where everything shattered.
What they cannot see are the many chapters that followed: the slow rebuilding, the courage required to face courtrooms and anniversaries, the determination to reclaim joy, and the gradual reshaping of identity beyond the role of “victim’s family.”
Our lives did not stop at the moment of the crime. They continued.
And over time, the story of the homicide becomes part of a much larger narrative—a life that includes love, growth, work, setbacks, healing, and sometimes even unexpected blessings.
When the waitress finished speaking, I simply said, “Time has a way of healing, and he is my bonus,” and nodded toward my husband sitting across from me.
She smiled and returned to work.
After she left, my husband broke the moment’s awkwardness with a simple observation:
“That was kind of her.”
And he was right.
But the moment also carried a quiet reminder for homicide survivors everywhere.
One of the quiet tasks of healing is reclaiming the right to be known for more than the worst thing that ever happened to us.
So when someone approaches with sympathy years later, we may briefly feel the strange sensation of time imploding—past and present collapsing for a moment.
Then the moment passes.
And we return to the life we have continued to build, one chapter at a time.
