On July 2nd, 2021, twenty-two year old Gabby Petito left with her boyfriend, Brian Laundrie in her converted “Garden on Wheels”. (Aka white van, turned into a mobile living space)
On September 1st, twenty-three year old Brian returned to his home in Florida, with Gabby’s van, but without her, after accessing $1,000 from her credit cards.
Once home, Brain went camping with his parents, and then disappeared.
Today, October 12th, there is a manhunt underway after Gabby Petito’s body was found on September 19th, next to a river in Wyoming. Her death was ruled a homocide.
So, what went wrong? Why, with all the murder cases around the nation, has the public picked up on this young girl, Gabby Petito?
What is the obsession? Was Gabby’s life worth more than the many other missing persons flooding the bulletin boards of Walmart?
Of course not.
Yet, a few things stand out as significant about this case, after body cam footage was released from a prior alteration between Brian and Gabby, on August 12th.
First, Gabby was a free spirit. She longed for freedom from the conventional restrains of life that trap many Americans into jobs they don’t like and homes they’re enslaved to make payments to.
I mean, after all, don’t we all, somewhere secretly, just long to jump in a van and travel to the Grand Teton’s or scope out the colorful mountains of Colorado with absolutely no one telling us what to do?
Don’t we all long for freedom from time, restraints, schedules, and the careful bullet-point ways of man?
Don’t we all secretly have a little bit of Gabby Petito inside us?
On August 19th, shortly after Brian Laundrie fled very randomly to Florida, leaving Gabby alone, the video, “Van Life” was posted to social media.
Gabby’s video was more than just another wanna be influencer, trying to get five minutes of fame. Instead, this documentation was a look inside the life of a nearly perfect appearing couple, living a life without walls…
Exploring a world where beach sand mixed between your toes. It’s a place where skies are open and valleys are painted with a touch of Michaelangelo…
It was a glimpe into the reality that this world we live in is more than just some white-walled cubical or a must-do schedule.
This life Gabby longed for, lives inside all of us. It wildly calls us home, whether we knew Gabby Petito or not.
Gabby was an artist and videographer. She showed us all how life was meant to be lived.
And the truth is, Gabby displayed more free-living in her one-stamped video, than most of us experience in a lifetime.
Without words or imperative statements, Gabby was callling us all into the unknown, towards adventures and daring…A place where the world is our home, and our innate nature calls us to explore it.
Gabby was the adventure we all long for, and I wonder if that was part of the draw of Gabby Petito’s story.
Apart from just Gabby being a free spirit and world wanderer, Gabby had an innocence about her, an innocence that still believed the best of people, even when it was dangerous to do so.
The body cam video taken by police, shows Gabby’s sweetness and vulnerability. And my guess is, somehow her anguished face, the sound of Gabby’s shaking voice, taking on the blame, to relinquish the guilty…
Is, in my guess, something we have all done; whether to our benefit or to our detriment.
We have all been innocent victims, haunted, and harmed by people who told us one thing, while quite tragically they became another.
We all, at one time or another, forgave the guilty and have seen evil flourish where good should have dwelled.
We each, have that same child-like faith inside us, like Gabby….Despite however many callouses have grown over that innocent place or not.
It’s the place that loves so freely, gives to others willingly, and trusts without inhabition…
Because we all want to believe that people are good and the world will work itself out, if we just
believe.
We have all been victimized, at least in the secret places of our hearts, where we don’t want to admit it, so we cover us, protect, and hide our scars.
We have each taken blame for something that should have been attributed to someone else, and sadly often, to our deteriment.
And finally, we have all known a Brian…
A person in our lives who smiled on camera and then became somebody entirely different, when the sun goes down and our own defenses are muddied…
Making discerning good and evil difficult.
We have each been betrayed and beaten by words, implications, and people we trust who turn on us when no one is looking.
And it hurts. It hurts to be Gabby.
Because afterall, Gabby’s thrive in a perfect work, but often are squashed by the evil of those without consciouses.
Like her, we can feel a twisting inside us when we become trapped between our dreams of what could be, yet can’t escape the tension between longing for freedom…
While hoping, good will somehow outweigh evil.
And while the story of Gabby Petito will long be centered around her violent death, her missing body and the wild goose chase of finding her ex-boyfriend Brain Laundrie…
I choose to look on Gabby Petito as a promise to you and me; a way of not just looking, but being…
No, not lost and tormented, estranged and then isolated on a beach far away, gasping for breath…
But, the little girl in Gabby. That smile that captured America with her innocence and trust. That young woman who wanted her Garden of Eden and reached for it by revamping a van she instantly loved…
That’s the kind of Gabby we all can idealize.
Don’t we all still long for Eden? Don’t we all want to be free without purpose? Untethered? Uncensored?
Don’t we each long to put out into the world, a dream of a life where we can explore nature, go anywhere without limitations?
Today, we heard about the cause of the death of Gabby Petito.
But I say, let’s remember the beautiful soul, the innocence, the good, as we continue to fight for justice.
Why are we all so captivated by Gabby Petito?
It’s not because of what she lost, or the mistakes, or failure to point the finger at someone else.
We remember Gabby and long for justice, because we somewhere deep inside us, we also want to believe, evil will be caught, and death has no hold on us…
And this world without walls is good and somehow worth exploring.
May we watch this case with innocence and intrique.
But perhaps, most of all, may we honor Gabby’s life, by living a bit more like her; free.
May we enjoy each moment as we return to a place in us, where we believe…
Believe in good. Believe in other people (even if it’s to a fault). And long for some redemptive purpose to this life that we have been given.
Let’s walk away a bit more freer.
This world still has good…And it’s our job to find it…
Regardless of evil constantly trying to harm us.
In the end, love is stronger than hate.
And wings are better than a cocooned life, we are forced into facing, when we hold back on living…
And forget that we too can fly.
