Remembering Matthew

I remember it like it was yesterday. Judy Shepard sitting in my office, her long eyelashes coated with a sheen of mascara and tears. Her eyes cast downward.

She was shy, painfully so. And yet she was traveling across the country to tell the story of her beloved son Matthew, beaten and left to die, tied to a fence in Laramie, WY. 

His body was discovered twenty-two years ago today, now dead longer than he was alive. I remember it like it was yesterday.....

“As a young person, I feel it necessary to show the great nation that we live in that there doesn't need to be this kind of violence and hatred in our world. And that loving one another doesn't mean that we have to compromise our beliefs; it simply means that we choose to be compassionate and respectful of others.” 
― Judy Shepard, The Meaning of Matthew: My Son's Murder in Laramie and a World Transformed