I got the text message at 4:34 a.m.:

Alert: KU Police (Lawrence campus) - Student found dead off campus. Use caution w/ person of interest, Adolfo Garcia. Go to www.ku.edu.

I don’t know anyone named Adolfo Garcia, but I had already been buzzed out of REM, so I logged on.

The KU Web site gave more details: Jana Mackey was found dead in the home of Adolfo Garcia-Nunez just before midnight. She was 25. Garcia-Nunez, 46, was a “person of interest”… police were still looking for him.

That’s Jana. Dini’s Jana. Shit. Shit. Shitshitshitshit.

And that’s Fito.

Jana lived with my friend Autumn’s ex-boyfriend, Dini. Adolfo Garcia-Nunez had to be Fito, Jana’s ex-boyfriend. They weren’t friends of mine, but they weren’t strangers either.

As soon as it registered that Jana Mackey had to be Dini’s roommate Jana (because, I figured, how many Janas could possibly be spending time with much older, hispanic men?), I called Autumn. That was at 4:42.

Autumn soon confirmed what I had figured out, but it was at 4:34 a.m. that my everything changed.

Michigan Street.
Slain.
Hanging out.
Artist.
Relationship.
Law student.
Murder.

Murder.

I don’t know that I will ever read these words again without seeing Jana. Jana in that ugly orange shirt, with Fito, playing soccer in South Park last week. Last week. Jana, her long limbs almost tangled up, in the beautiful portrait he painted for her. Jana, laughing, her smile revealing more gums than imaginable, on the porch at FreeState the night Andrew and I made Autumn and Dini come to the Red Lion.

Jana.

We weren’t close. She was mostly just images and stories and the girl who raised the cat who swatted at my legs when I sat at the kitchen table. She was mostly just the owner of a lot of stuff in Dini’s house. Mostly a woman my friend looked up to and, though she never said it, felt she must compete with just a little.

Two and a half (or so) years ago, Jana met Fito. Yes, he was older than she. Yes, he had two kids. No, she didn’t know much about him… then.

But that was two and a half years ago.

I don’t know when they started dating, but Jana and Fito broke up a week (or so) ago. I don’t know much about it, but I know she knew they had different lives ahead of them. She understood how the age difference and his kids could factor into her life if she so chose. But he wasn’t just an old father. By that time, Jana knew him: He was an artist who played recreational soccer and cooked her dinner.

She knew he had spent two years in jail, but Fito didn’t just lie to Jana about his name. He told her his ex-girlfriend had manipulated the system, that she was crazy, that his sentence had been unjust. He was 46, yes. He had spent two years in jail. But to Jana, Fito proved himself to be more than those numbers.

And so, somehow, a week after they broke up, Jana ended up at his house. And, somehow, she ended up dead. Murdered. But police say she fought like hell; Fito was beat up pretty badly when they finally caught him a day later. That’s Jana.

But she could have been me. She could have been any of us.

Because she didn’t do anything wrong.

I want to be able to point to the details, to say “Look. It makes sense that she died because _____.” But it doesn’t. It might never make sense. I might never have enough information to make a rule. I want (I need) to be able to say, “I’ll be OK, as long as I don’t ______.”

Jana was at the home of a man she trusted. She had known him for years. She had ended a relationship that had needed to be ended. It was just another breakup. She didn’t do anything wrong.

So what do I put in that blank? I’ll be OK, but as long as I don’t what? Trust? Love? Forgive?

An extensive autopsy has left those who knew her (and those who didn’t) with no more answers than the newspaper articles about her death. Nothing in this murder can tell me how to protect myself. Nothing in this murder is telling me it’s OK to trust, love and forgive.

Jana’s life will be celebrated at Liberty Hall on Wednesday afternoon. And if the joy I saw each time she smiled in my presence (and in Fito’s representation of that smile) is any indication, the music hall will be full. And maybe that’s where I should look for answers. Maybe Jana’s friends and family members can tell me that it’s OK —that it’s safe — to love.

Judging by the way she lived her life, I know Jana would.

I will readily admit that I am a bit of a nerd. Actually, I am a huge nerd. I love to learn, and I love being a student. So it should come as no surprise that I took four-and-a-half years to finish my undergraduate degree. I wanted to take a victory lap, as they say. However, nothing about my last semester could be called academically challenging. In fact, I didn’t have a single academic class. As a Kinesiology major, there were a certain number of P.E. classes that I had to take. I kept putting these requirements off in favor of more interesting subjects such as Exercise Physiology, the Care and Prevention of Athletic Injuries and introductory courses in Cardiac Rehabilitation. But when I got to the end of four years, only eight semester hours stood between me and graduation, and they were all P.E.

Not that I really wanted to graduate. I almost didn’t want to. Not only would it mean that I didn’t get to take any more classes (at least for a while), it also meant having to sit through an incredibly long and boring ceremony. Commencement at Texas Tech lasts about three hours. There are speeches by people you don’t know and who will probably have no lasting impact on your life, and then you have to sit in agony as thousands of people walk across the stage to get their diplomas. I mean, I know graduating from college is a wonderful accomplishment, but it seems to me that the way we choose to acknowledge this occasion is more like a punishment than a celebration.

So, knowing what kind of torture lay ahead for me on graduation day, I decided to go and visit my brother, Andy, in California the week before I graduated. He had just moved to the San Francisco area that summer to work at a church as an intern with the youth group, and I was just dying to see what his Cali lifestyle was all about. I had heard many stories of sunshine, many interesting people, and IN-N-OUT burger. IN-N-OUT is a fast food chain that, supposedly, is so good that it would be worth my trip, in and of itself. I’m never one to turn down a good burger, even if I have to travel halfway across the country to get it. Besides, I was graduating; I deserved it.

My plan was perfectly laid out to allow maximum Cali time. I was to arrive on a Saturday, exactly one week before graduation, and fly back to Texas the following Friday, the day before graduation. My parents would pick me up at the airport that night, and I would be able to be back to my apartment to get a good night’s rest before my 1 p.m. graduation the next day. Mom and dad had hotel reservations, and we had dinner plans with various family and friends set up for after the ceremony. At least I would get some free food out of it.

Cali time went exactly according to plans. As soon as Andy picked me up at the airport, we went to play Wiffle-ball (a plastic baseball with holes in it) with some of the kids in his youth group. I got to meet all of his friends, and I really got to see what his life there was like. We even made a trip down to L.A. (where Andy currently lives) with the intent of going to Disney World. Sadly, that didn’t happen (and is another story entirely), but it was still a fun trip, and I got to meet some more of his friends. All in all, it was an amazing time that will live on in my memory as one of the more epic trips that I have taken.

So you can understand how we were sad to see it end. When Thursday evening rolled around, and we were making preparation to get me to the airport the next day, I just had a feeling that it wasn’t supposed to be over. It just didn’t feel like my trip was complete, and I couldn’t exactly say why. I knew that my graduation ceremony was waiting for me back in Texas, and that wasn’t particularly exciting, but I had this pervasive feeling that I had unfinished business in California.

Nonetheless, we were committed to seeing the plan through to completion. So I packed my bag on Thursday night, and we loaded up the car the next morning to head to the airport. As we drove, we talked and laughed about the previous week, and about how boring graduation was going to be. I was intermittently gazing out the window, looking at the street signs and the billboards.

And then I saw it: an IN-N-OUT sign. I had not yet had an IN-N-OUT burger.

I instantly knew that this was what I needed to complete my California experience. This was my unfinished business. I had no sooner said these words to Andy, than he had whipped us into the parking lot.

“Should we go through the drive-thru?” I asked.

“Nah, we’ve got time,” replied Andy.

What I experienced inside was not earth-shattering. I did not have an other-worldly experience, or see the face of Jesus in the bun of my burger. I did, however, have a very good cheeseburger and an excellent chocolate milk shake, and gave me some closure on my Cali adventure. Or so I thought.

Even though it had not been half an hour since we had exited the freeway, traffic had become so clogged that it caused us to get to the airport only 12 minutes before my flight was scheduled to leave. As it turns out, airlines generally consider this unacceptable, and there were no more flights that day. The best they could do was give me the same itinerary for the next day, which would not get me back in time for graduation. Oops.

To be honest, I was a little disappointed. I had spent close to a $100 on a cap, gown, and honor cords that would now go unused. I also wasted all of the money that I had spent on the plane ticket, and now had to help pay for gas since I would be driving back to Texas with my brother a few days later. I was more disappointed for my parents, though. They were so excited to see their oldest child graduate from college, and I missed it. And for what? A cheeseburger.

Then I reminded myself how boring graduation ceremonies were, and thought about all of the extra fun I had on my bonus time in California. I got to go on a retreat with Andy and his youth group, and he even held a fake graduation ceremony for me. Sometimes I think I should have planned it that way and not even have tried to make it back for graduation. Then again, it probably wouldn’t have been as much fun if it had been planned, and it definitely wouldn’t be as funny. Now I get to tell people that I missed my college graduation for a cheeseburger. It’s a great little factoid to use while playing get-to-know-you games, and I loved telling the story to my students because it allowed them to see that I am, in fact, human. More importantly, I didn’t have to waste three hours of my life in a silly outfit listening to people tell me how great it is to graduate from college, and pretending to be excited about it.

That tasty cheeseburger was five-and-a-half years ago. I still got my diploma, and my parents were able to see me graduate in 2007 when I was awarded a Master’s degree. I have had the opportunity to do and see many amazing things since I missed my college graduation, yet this story will always hold a very special place in my heart, probably because of its uniqueness. The question I get most often when I tell this story is “Was it worth it?” The answer is an unequivocal “Yes!” and I would do it again in a heartbeat.

I made my way down the winding, gravel driveway that connected the secret world of summer camp with the busy reality of normal life. I was working as a counselor at church camp, and I tried to make the most of my precious two-hour break each day. I usually chose between napping and going on a run. This afternoon, I calculated I would have time for a four-mile run and still be able to shower and rest a bit before dinner. I had already measured earlier in the summer where the two-mile turnaround point was, so I slipped into autopilot.

I approached an intersection, where I was going to be turning right. To my left was a house up on a hill. The only other residence in sight across the fields of corn and the woods was a trailer parked right on the corner of the crossing streets.

I began to hear dogs barking coming from the direction of the hill house. I glanced to my left to see two mutts with shaggy dark hair racing down the hill toward me. They were medium-sized dogs… maybe even on the larger side of medium. I became a little nervous but remembered my runs in high school back home. Whenever dogs would chase me, they always gave up and turned back toward home, playful tails a-wagging.

So I did my best to ignore the dogs by gritting my teeth and closing my eyes, trying to stifle my flight instinct and continued jogging. The dogs ran alongside me for a brief second, then turned around. Small sigh of relief. I tried to let my mind wander… to the girls in my cabin, the evening’s campfire program, my upcoming free weekend… but I couldn’t shake a certain nervousness about my encounter with the loose dogs. I prayed that they would be gone when I came back around. Before I knew it, I had turned around and was approaching the intersection for the second time. I was relieved to see the dogs were nowhere in sight. Yet as I began down the road toward camp, I heard them again.

Maybe my fear was heightened, or maybe I just paid more attention. But I didn’t just hear them bark. I heard their collars tinking with their tags. I heard their paws pound the packed dirt. I heard the snarl of their saliva slap around on their teeth as they shouted at me. I slowed down to a jog, unsure of what to do. They tore at me across the yard, much faster, it seemed, than last time. I kept looking straight ahead, hoping they’d leave me alone once they noticed I was harmless.

Again, they began to travel alongside me. But only for a second. As if in slow motion, I heard the dog on my left… the darker and larger of the two… suck in air as he opened his mouth, aiming at my leg. The air gushed out as his top and bottom teeth dug into both sides of my thigh.

In the tiny span of time that passed between being bitten and reacting, an entire scenario played itself out in my head. It wasn’t my life flashing before my eyes; it was fear catapulting me into the very near future. I saw the dogs tear my 125-lbs. of human flesh to the pavement with a sickening thud. I saw myself trying to flail and shake myself free, and no one was around to hear my cries.

I yelped in a throaty voice and once I regained my composure and my lungs, screamed. Startled, the dogs backed off a little. In a split second, my fear turned to seething anger.

I waved my arms at them and stared them square in the face. “NO!” I snapped as mean and loud as I could possibly muster. “GET AWAY! NO!” They backed up, seeming dazed. I began walking quickly away, calculating in my mind what my next move was. I was a mile away from camp. Walk back? Approach the trailer and ask for help? No one else would be down this road. I knew it. I stopped and stared at the trailer for a bit. It looked abandoned, incredibly dirty, and in all honesty, creepy. Sporting an extra sensitive intuition as well as nerves that were heightened like leaves in a tornado, I chose to walk back.

As I calmed down, constantly checking to see if the dogs were following me, I stopped to examine my leg. My shorts were ripped clear up to the elastic waist band on the left side, I had a deep inch-long cut on the left side of my thigh. Blood had begun to drip clear down to my sock and shoe, staining them red. There were deep scratches clear on the opposite side of my leg. I frowned and realized he managed to nearly fit my entire leg in his mouth.

That was when I started to cry. My anger melted away, and the fear surfaced again. My breathing became a little more labored and hot tears washed salty sweat onto my lips. I sped up my walking, clinging to my shorts to keep them together, as I imagined diseases and rabies traveling to my heart and quickly taking over my body.

The next few minutes passed slowly as I walked. I kept imagining things, like my body all of a sudden showing symptoms of some mad dog disease that I knew must exist. I kept licking my lips… was I foaming at the mouth? I kept feeling my cut throb… was it getting infected?

I finally got back to the camp owner’s house at the foot of the camp driveway. Laverne, the mother and keeper of all that is camp, immediately grabbed me and threw me into the bathroom, pulling soap and alcohol out of nowhere. She demanded that I wash the wound as many times as I could while she called the sheriff and found me an extra pair of her daughter’s shorts.

The sheriff arrived just about the time Laverne’s husband, Dave, drove down from camp in his truck. After filing a report, describing the dogs, and enduring photos of my injuries, I readied myself to go back to camp. Before I did, Dave sat me down.

“I’ve told you counselors before running out there on those roads is dangerous,” Dave said. I looked down sheepishly. I knew he was right. “But now you know what to do when you’re being chased. You stop and you look those mean old dogs right in face.” Dave made a scowl, his bushy eyebrows lowering over his eyes and his wrinkled lips puckering out. He pointed at an imaginary dog in front of him with his big, tan farmer hands. “And you show ‘em you’re not afraid. That usually does the trick. Running will just make ‘em chase ya more.”

That day essentially turned into a metaphorical chalkboard for the three things I learned about how life works:

1.) When something threatens me — my safety, my happiness, my well-being, my peace of mind — sometimes I run. And running makes it worse. Ignoring conflict can lead to anger, which is only a form of hurt and heartache. And these can nuzzle their way into my heart until I don’t know how to root them out anymore. Addressing conflict makes me a stronger and more confident person.

2) While it might have hurt at the time, anything that ever caused me pain didn’t disappear from memory very fast… if ever. I remember every wretched detail of times in my life that have led to heartache. In fact, I still bare some of the scars to prove it. These times made such an impression on me that I’ve since learned to tread lightly the next time around. This has served me well.

3) I better understand God’s discipline and guiding through trials. Why can’t everything be warm and fuzzy when we allow God to lead us? Because we wouldn’t grow… we wouldn’t learn, and we wouldn’t budge.

Sometimes instead of running from the hurt and pain and fear of life, we need to stand our ground and look it in the face. Only then do we learn what life has been trying to teach us all along.