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Sometimes you have those occasions where you stop and realize how pathetic your little problems really are in the grand scheme of things, and you get knocked down a notch or two........

I have the very distinct privilege of working with one of the most well rounded and knowledgeable people I have ever met. Not a day has gone by that she has not made me laugh with her indescribable wit. But, not a day goes by that I am not taken back by her true strength.

Her daughter was slaughtered in 2002 by Derrik Todd Lee, the infamous "Baton Rouge Serial Killer." Per the pictures I've seen, she was absolutely beautiful and full of life. She graduated from high school early, flew through college, and was the youngest graduate from her Master's degree program at LSU, which she earned just prior to her murder.

After learning the true details of her story, I could not watch CSI, Law and Order, or any similar show for months. This was exactly the thing I had become desensitized to from TV, but this was an honest to God true life tragedy. She had been stabbed more than 80 times, beaten with a clothes iron, and had her throat cut. But, apparently she had some of the very same strength I see in her mother every day, because the scene showed that she did not go down without violently fighting back. I just stood there frozen listening to more details, speechless. I cannot comprehend knowing that all of these cruel acts had happened to your own child, your baby.

Strength. This does not mean she does not break down from time to time. I embraced her while she sobbed the Friday before Mother's Day. But her strength to me, is getting up every morning, still putting forth effort and living each day, and managing to work in a few laughs and make others laugh.

She has been asked to do several media events lately, one this morning as a matter of fact. I know she fights to keep her daughter's memory alive, fights for justice, and genuinely wants to help anyone else that could benefit from the story. But can you image telling, reliving it all so publicly and repeatedly? Really brings you down a notch or two when your biggest concerns were wondering what grade you are going to get in Anatomy, why you haven't gotten an instant reply to your last text message, or you wishing you had worn different shoes.

She humbles me.

After her daughter died, she said she used to have a recurrent dream about a deer being hunted. She thought a lot about the fear and randomness in life and wrote the following:
"This dark dream chases my heart until it pounds and races like the hearts of deer running from the death the hunters bring. The woods conceal the deer - but also conceal the hunter. God and fortune dance in the dry leaves and glance over their shoulders to see whom the trees will save."