Picking up the Pieces

By Scott Billeck, @scottbilleck

The most cherished words Violet Flett holds on to are a chain of text messages that begins on June 27, 2013.
The last message she reads off her iPhone is her own: “Goodnight son, I love you xoxo. I hope you’re okay.”
“He read it,” Flett says, through tears, as she points to the notification below her message.
Just hours after seeing his mom’s final message early on June 29, 2013, Michael Flett was stabbed in the back of the head in a lane behind a North End house where he’d attended a party.
Later that same day, Violet made the toughest decision of her life — removing her son from life support.
“It was no way for him to live,” she recalls. “I regret it every day, but he never would have wanted to live like that, with tubes and machines attached to him. He couldn’t have taken care of himself again.”
When she got the news of his attack and rushed to the hospital, Violet couldn’t see Michael right away.
Because of her heart condition, Violet’s family was concerned that the sight of her son would simply be too much.
“The doctor eventually sat me down and told me that I was going to see Michael, but he wouldn’t be
coherent, he couldn’t hear me or talk to me,” she says. “He told me Michael was brain dead.”

* * *

Trying to cope has become Violet’s way of life. Things that were once commonplace now remind her of Michael and his tragic end.
She hardly uses a knife anymore — the same implement used to end Michael’s life gives her chills.
Ambulance sirens cause her nerves to tingle. She scratches herself. She gets bumps all over her body. She breaks outs. Sleep is sporadic. She goes to bed thinking of Michael and wakes up on the same thought. She cries, endlessly at times. And she writes.
“I just wrote today,” Violet says, pointing to the rows of books on her bookshelf. “‘Son, I am thinking you today now that winter is here. I think of you driving the front-end loader. You’d be getting ready for a call to go to work tonight.’”
He haunts her, but in a good way.
“He’s here, always,” she says. “When I cry, he knows. When I talk to him, he knows what I’m saying. He can hear me. Every breath I take, Michael takes a breath. Every time I move, he moves. I live for Michael.”
Violet is never too far from her son. Michael’s remains rest in an urn on a shelf next to her TV, along with every picture and trinket she’s collected with any reference to her son. Her home has become a shrine to Michael, complete with his death certificate framed on the wall. There isn’t a place where his face escapes the eye.
He’d be 33 right now, she says.
“I put a front out in the world when I go out, everyone says I’m strong. But when I come in here, I cry. I can let myself go. This is my sanctuary,” she says.
“I got to live, but I don’t know how to live now. I don’t take my medications right. “It’s hard, I just survive.”
Violet puts a hot plate out on holidays in the spot Michael would sit at her table. The cupboards are filled with foods Michael would eat.
“Some of them I don’t eat. I don’t like sardines,” she notes, cracking a smile. “But when I go shopping, it’s not just for me.”
Her bedroom has an armoire filled with more food Michael liked. There’s also a freezer with even more. And his clothes line her closet.

* * *

Few can appreciate the impact on a family and struggle its members go through following the murder of a loved one.
This is according to the Canadian Parents of Murdered Children’s (CPOMC) website (http://www.cpomc.ca/), an organization that offers support to parents and others who have been distressed
by the murder of one of their children.
“Survivors of homicide victims go through the worst grief they will probably ever experience and are constantly being re-victimized by the inevitable bureaucracy that follows a murder, which compounds their trauma,” their website reads. “In an instant, life as we once knew it disappears and the future becomes a struggle between moving on and hanging on.”
Violet has tapped into the Victims Services Branch of the Manitoba government
(http://www.gov.mb.ca/justice/victims/services.html). The government paid for Michael’s funeral when Violet had no idea how she was going to. She sees a counsellor, although she admits the sessions haven’t helped much. Despite having help available to her at home, through Skype, or in a more traditional setting, she feels no one can relate, including her own family.
“They tell me they understand, but they have kids they can go home and hug,” she says. “I have no one. Michael was all I had. I just seems like no one wants to talk about it anymore. They tell me about their woes, that they’ve lost someone and they know what I’m going through. ‘No, you don’t.’”
Violet knows life goes on. Hers just hasn’t, yet. “I’m not sure if it every will,” she says.

* * *

For now, Violet focuses on seeing justice done for her deceased son. Forgiveness for his killers is something that will never come.
“I live for Michael, to see (them) get what they deserve.”
Michael Roulette, the man who stabbed him, was convicted of second-degree murder but has yet to be sentenced.
An accomplice, Dillin Bird, was convicted of manslaughter and will spend another year in prison after serving three of his four-and-a-half year sentence.
At Bird’s sentencing, Violet mouthed the words, “I hope you’re being truthful” to him after he apologized to the Flett family. She then went over to Bird’s daughter and told her everything would be all right.
“She’s innocent in this,” Violet says. “I feel sorry for her. Not having a dad around, he’s been gone for three years and he’s got another one to go. All she knows about daddy is a big courtroom and she can’t touch him.
“That’s like me – I can’t touch Michael anymore. I felt something for her.”
Violet doesn’t expect the same reaction for Roulette, who she feels has shown no remorse for his actions.
“He had a smile on his face when he left the court room the last time,” she remembers.
Violet isn’t sure how she’ll handle Roulette’s sentencing.
“I haven’t come to that yet,” she says. “I’ve come to one part, where one is in jail. And he’s only going to serve another year. Is that justice? No. A murder is a murder, no matter what.
“I can’t feel sorry for people like them. He wanted to use (it) that night,” Violet says, referring to a Facebook post from Roulette earlier in the day where he was brandishing the murder weapon.
“It’s not OK. Why did you do that — because you wanted to use that knife that night?”
Roulette is due in court on Dec. 11.

* * *

Violet wants to be more involved in speaking out against violence. She has a list of things she wants to do. She hasn’t read through the guestbook from Michael’s funeral. And one day, she’d like to visit the back alley where her son died. But today isn’t that day, and it’s unlikely tomorrow will be it, either.
“I’m just not ready,” she says, softly.
Violet doesn’t work — she’s on disability for other health issues. Even without the physical issues she deals with, she doesn’t think she’s emotionally prepared to handle a job.
She dreams about it, though.
“I’d love to learn how to drive a front-end loader one day,” she says. “I’d want to do what Michael did.”
Twitter: @scottbilleck
Email: sbilleck1@gmail.com