No Happy Ending

    Although the outcome of Thursday's sentencing hearing was what we hoped, a long sentence for the dealer, it was not a happy ending. Tracy was just as gone from our lives and he had been before. The dealer, Neil, will be gone from his family's life, probably forever. God had thrown so many Christians into our path the two days preceding the hearing, by the time we were on our way to Helena, if I had looked out my side window and saw one of my friends loping beside the car promising to pray for us, I would not have been greatly surprised. I am thankful for all the reassurances because, when we got to Ronan, Reed found an email from the court giving the Zoom link for the hearing at 10 a.m.!! I had emailed the scheduler and asked her to notify me if the time had changed, otherwise we would be there at 1:30. I assumed no reply meant it hadn't. I made a frantic call and email to the prosecutor, Mary. Britten and Will had spent Wednesday night in Helena, so they quickly zipped to the courthouse and we sent photos of our statements to Britten so she could read them if needed. We were not going to make it all the way into Missoula by 10, so we stopped at a truck stop outside of town to use their WiFi and set up our phones for Zoom. 

   To our immense relief, Mary called and said the judge moved our hearing to the end of 3:30 court session. The change was made easier by the fact that the defense attorney didn't know the hearing was at 10 either. Despite the unintentional cardio workout we got when we thought we would miss the hearing, we recognized God's hand. For the first time, we decided to go Helena via Missoula because our daughter said there were road construction traffic delays on our usual route through Seely Lake that delayed them 30-40 minutes when they drove through the day before. If we had gone that way, we would not have had cell service to receive the message about the hearing.

    Meanwhile I wondered if God gave us all that encouragement to soften the blow of not being present for the hearing, or perhaps for a disappointing sentence. I also wondered if this was God's way of getting Britten and Will to finally speak. But the main message I got from all that divine intervention was that whatever the result of the hearing was, it would be God's will. Unsurprisingly, God wove all the details together perfectly--hotel check in and check out times, granddaughters having hours to swim, the lenient judge was not presiding, being last on the schedule so we could share more privately. Although, after nearly losing our chance to testify, we were no longer reluctant to share, we were determined to. I spoke. Then Reed. The gist of both was that, based on his history, Neil would return to dealing drugs if he was not in prison. The prosecutor gave a well presented closing argument about the intent of the legislature in enacting the enhanced charge. Then she listed the aggravating circumstances in Neil's case that would justify a long sentence, and asked for 40 years. Neil did not speak in his own defense. He turned around to apologize to our family. His attorney stated how well how Neil had done in the past two years, that 40 years would be a life sentence, and suggested 20 years with 15 suspended.

    The judge looked at Neil's 40 year criminal history, listed assaults we weren't aware of, and that Neil had already had years of his previous sentences suspended. She sentenced him to 38 years, none suspended. I think the two years difference from the plea agreement was for his recent good behavior. Instead of coming up for parole in 10 years, he will be eligible in 9.5, but with a criminal record condemning Neil and the stack of letters commending Tracy, he is unlikely to get it. He apologized to me again when I gave him my Lament book and my forgiveness. Then he apologized to Will, who showed grace that amazed me by thanking Neil for not fighting the charges and shook his hand, man to man. Neil truly seemed broken by Tracy's death, I hope it leads him to the One who restores broken people.

     But, as I said, there is no happy ending. The dealer's family was also broken, crying. I think Tracy would have felt compassion for Neil's family, but I think he would have more concern about protecting other families from Neil's drugs, so I am glad we could protect them his place. We were satisfied with the sentence, but I cannot say we got what we wanted. What we wanted was Tracy back.