Mary Westra

Mary Rondeau Westra grew up in Northeast Minneapolis. She graduated from Macalester College and taught French for eight years before becoming a stay-at-home mom. When her two daughters and son became teenagers, she went back to work, launching a 10-year career of fundraising for arts organizations. She retired from the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 2002, shortly after the murder of her son, Peter. She became a Master Gardener and museum guide and started writing. Mary continues to be inspired by Peter. Over the years since his murder, she has reached out to other parents of children who have been murdered — writing them letters or picking up the phone. She stays in contact with a number of Peter's close friends from childhood and Middlebury College. And every year on July 8, she and her husband, and any family or friends who are present, wake up early and go down to their dock on the lake, sitting together to mark the hour that Peter lived after the attack in Atlantic City. Mary and her husband, Mark, live in White Bear Lake, Minn. They bike and hike together, watch birds, play golf, and Mary tends the garden; they spend time with their adult daughters, and Mary has begun to knit for her first grandchild, born in 2010.

Articles:

Letter to Family After a Death

Dear Extended Family of Peter, Christmas is over. We made it. Now we await his birthday, the anniversary of his death, other Christmases, wedding, other funerals. We sincerely thank you for your greetings and gifts though we did not send any to you this year. You have asked what you can do to help us. As you know, grief does not end. You surely must miss him too. After all, you knew him when he was a babe in arms, had gangly legs and arms, funny teeth, stupid antics. You can help us by talking about Peter, with us or […]

Forgiving Killers is a Process

They were just faces to me. I wouldn’t make eye contact. Instead I focused on their clothes . . . grey-white sweatshirts, denim shirts, jeans, white sneakers. They didn’t look like inmates, more like janitors to me. I was invited to the medium-security facility in a program of restorative justice sponsored by the University of Minnesota. I was one of two victims ―or are we survivors― of homicide who were invited to meet with four perpetrators serving long sentences for homicides. It was not a match―I was not facing “our” perpetrator. I would not have been willing to meet the […]

Orioles and Wood Ducks: Birds of Hope

I never used to pay much attention to the birds. To me, they were just little brown blobs I’d notice from the corner of my eye while I was flitting to the garage, to the garbage can, or to the mailbox. A busy mom, I didn’t have time to stop and look. Then, when my kids were older, I went back to work and really jammed activity and purpose into every day. I’d catch up with the birds later when I had more time. Then my twenty-four year old son, Peter, was kicked to death by bouncers outside a club […]

Mom Opens to Forgiveness After Son’s Murder

I don’t find forgiveness a very easy concept to deal with after the murder of my son. My 24-year-old son Peter was kicked to death by bouncers in Atlantic City, NJ, in July 2001 during a bachelor party. For reasons that remain unclear, one bouncer took Peter out of the club about 4:00 AM, roughed him up on the hood of a Honda, left him there. When Peter tried to go back into the club, five men streamed out the door, knocked him to the ground, and continued to kick him even after he lost consciousness. Then they went back […]

Hating the Holidays

The unease creeps in around Halloween. The bags of miniature candy, the masks, the decorations box waiting to be unpacked, lights at the front door, goblins to greet. It’s just not as much fun as it used to be . . . when my toddling Peter dressed as baby blue rabbit took the hand of his older sister in pink pajama sleeper, their sewn on ears at a cocky tilt, and headed out with my husband to haunt the neighborhood. A few years later, he was a curly-white-haired old lady, then in college he wrapped his head in a turban […]

Address Book Links Then … and Now

Early in the morning of Sunday, July 8, 2001, the sheriff drove up to our house and the chaplain told us through the screen door that our twenty-four year old son Peter had been kicked to death by bouncers in Atlantic City. When they came in, they asked for my address book. “In the kitchen . . . second drawer from the door . . . on the left,” I managed to blurt out while clinging to my husband. Somehow, without conscious thought, I came up with the right names, the names of nearby friends who were home and who […]