FROM HORSEPLAY to Heroes

Posted 11/22/22

I drove by the River Falls property where Amara, Sophie, and Cecilia Schaffhausen were murdered by their father over a decade ago. There, sits a brand-new house. The credit union owning the mortgage …

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FROM HORSEPLAY to Heroes

Posted

I drove by the River Falls property where Amara, Sophie, and Cecilia Schaffhausen were murdered by their father over a decade ago. There, sits a brand-new house. The credit union owning the mortgage on the property, at the time, demolished the old house, including the foundation. The City of River Falls assigned a new address, in hopes of giving the lot a new life. The address is four numbers more than the previous one, though no one can confirm if it’s coincidence or an intentional symbolic hug to the mother and her three daughters.

Less than a mile from the new house with the new foundation and the new life sits the gravesite of Amara, Sophie, and Cecilia in Greenwood Cemetery. They were laid to rest next to their shared headstone. The tree branches directly above the three girls still had most of her leaves the day I visited, bursting with color and brio. Every other tree in the row was barren, but not the tree by her three young girls. This fawn of fall was bursting with yellow and orange pride. On this day, it’s as if she inhaled from the roots in the ground, puffed out her trunk, stared down the evil dragon, and presumptuously swayed and swagged her leaves to show those above ground that light will always overcome darkness.

The mother of Amara, Sophie, and Cecilia is now remarried to Matt and has two children, Trinity and Flint.

Jessica Peterson has a different last name now. She says she’s a different mother and a different person after her ex-husband murdered their three daughters. He is now serving life in prison.

Jessica has also been in prison, only one without bars. She has seen a place where the dark has a color of blackness most of us cannot fathom no matter how hard we close our eyes. If her ex-husband’s goal was to give her pain, he succeeded; but what he did not foresee, what he was incapable of seeing, was the light Jessica Peterson is shining on the world one reader at a time. Just like the tree roots growing underneath her daughters, it has been a process of slow growth. The pen, authentically, is mightier than the sword.

“Therapists are big on journaling it out,” said Jessica, “I found it to be an incredibly therapeutic process.”

For five years Jessica Peterson has been writing a book about her story. “Thistles and Thorns” debuted two weeks ago and is currently the #1 new release on Amazon.com.

“Life is about embracing the fact there’s pain and suffering in it,” said Jessica, “and that is what makes all the joy and light possible.”

Five years is a long time and she does work full-time as a social worker for Washington County (Minn.). During this entire period, Jessica questioned herself, “I thought, who’s going to want to read this?”

The Tri-Angels Park is located next to Greenwood Cemetery where Amara, Sophie, and Cecilia are by their tree. People in River Falls raised over a half million dollars to build it after the murders. It was the town’s way to let themselves know love will always overcome evil.

Jessica was sitting at the Tri-Angels Park by herself about two years ago when she was thinking about quitting the book idea. A person came up to her and said they lost their spouse to suicide and told her, “If you can survive that, I can survive this.”

Jessica decided right then at the Tri-Angels Park, “If I can do that for one more person, it makes it all worthwhile.”

“Thistles and Thorns” begins on July 10, 2012, when her ex-husband called at the end of her workday and told her, “You can come now, I killed the kids.”

“Kind of hitting the hardest point first,” she said.

It explains how their lives were built and how they fell apart.

“It’s also a lot to do with the after,” said Jessica, “and how the community came together to carry us through.”

Jessica loves to cook, and she says that’s her happy place. Dinner time was a special time with Amara, Sophie, and Cecilia and they used to play “Roses and Thorns” and talk about both the good and bad things that happened each day at the dinner table.

That’s how the book title, “Thistles and Thorns,” came to be. Each chapter in “Thistles and Thorns” is named after a song title and it’s a playlist of her life and rebirth over the last decade, a song track of her heart.

Jessica says her goal is not to forgive her ex-husband. She’s been working on forgiving herself. I asked her, “Why do you have to forgive yourself? You didn’t do anything.”

Jessica replied, “I failed to keep them safe.”

I interviewed Jessica for over an hour. I listened to the recorded interview twice to make sure. I never heard her say her ex-husband’s name one single time. She said she has never spoken with him since the murders and never will.

One chapter in the book is titled “Stubborn Love.” It’s a song by The Lumineers. There is one lyric in this song which I think is extremely poignant and it’s the reason Jessica chose it. Everyone thinks the opposite of love is hate, but to hate someone you must have some level of care or passion towards them.

The Lumineers sing, “The opposite of love’s indifference,” meaning to be void of any care at all.

“I have this complete indifference (towards her ex-husband) and that’s what I’m working towards,” said Jessica, “Hard things happened to him and disappointments. His response was to feed the darkness.”

“Just because your personal tragedies don’t make the national news,” said Jessica, “Doesn’t make them any less. I’m hopeful that my story helps someone.”

“Thistles and Thorns” has already sold thousands of copies in just two weeks, or it would not be the #1 new release on Amazon. com. It is safe to say Jessica Peterson’s story has helped many and it reminds us that love wins in the end. It is undefeated.