I recently had someone ask me a pointed question: “How can you be happy to celebrate that someone is dying?”
It’s a fair question. Generally speaking, I believe that celebrating death is a dark road to go down. I’m not someone who finds joy in loss, and I believe in the sanctity of life. But when it comes to the news regarding Ian Huntley, my perspective shifts.
It isn’t about celebrating death in a vacuum; it’s about the closing of a chapter that has caused immeasurable pain for over two decades.
When we talk about Huntley, we aren’t talking about a life lived in service or even a life of normal mistakes. We are talking about the person responsible for the stolen futures of Holly Wells and Jessica Chapman.
For many of us, the names of those two young girls are etched into our minds. We remember the fear, the search, and the eventual, crushing heartbreak of the Soham murders. To celebrate the end of Huntley’s life isn’t about being pro-death, It’s about being pro-justice and pro-remembrance.
I don’t celebrate death, but I do celebrate the removal of a monster from the world. I celebrate the fact that his name might finally stop appearing in our news cycles. I celebrate that he can no longer breathe the air that his victims were denied.
If you find it hard to understand why someone would celebrate this, I ask you to look past the person dying and look toward the families who have had to live with his existence for 24 years.
My celebration is actually a moment of silence for Holly and Jessica. Their lives mattered. His passing is simply the final, necessary punctuation mark at the end of a very dark story.
RIP Holly & Jessica, You will always be remembered 😢
