What’s Your Alibi?

Where were you on Wednesday, January 13, 1999?

Seriously.

Do you remember?

Anything?

I was in grad school at the University of Illinois in Urbana Champaign, getting my masters in Leisure Studies (for real, that is something one can major and get multiple degrees in).

I am pretty sure I was back from winter break, and thus was in my last semester there, as well working at my assistantship in the office for Leadership Development in the Student Activities Department in the Illini (Student) Union building.

I knew little to nothing about Baltimore, Maryland.

I’d never heard of Leakin Park.

And I wouldn’t know what a podcast was for at least another decade.

I don’t think I even had owned a cell phone or pager yet.

I did have an email address, but that had only been since my freshman year there, in 1993-94. We were the first incoming class to be assigned them.

I had met my now husband, of almost 15 years, Bob. We would get engaged a few months later and begin planning our wedding.

I was excited about what the future held for Bob and me!

I wanted a big family, to be successful in my chosen career (as parks and recreation professional), to be a good mom, wife, Christian, and human being.

There is so much I didn’t anticipate about what would happen in the years to come.

Who does?

I never imagined I would be asked to resign or be fired from my first job in the “real world,” at an award-winning suburban park district, after being a loyal employee for three years, and doing what I and many others believed was great work there.

Nor did I think that I would land on my feet so quickly, just three weeks later, in a vocation that I couldn’t have dreamed up if I tried, but seemed to be a perfect fit at a faith-based institution, as the first Director of the Peacebuilders Initiative working with high school students (juniors and seniors).

Then, just three months into my new and awesome job, I got pregnant, something we wanted so much, but had eluded us in eight months of trying, and I realized, since we agreed for me to be a stay at home mom (SAHM), that my stint with the Peacebuilders Initiative would be short-lived.

I certainly didn’t know that Bob and I would experience three early pregnancy losses after the healthy birth of our first child, our son, Sean in October 2003.

And then to follow those loses with burying our second child, our daughter, Molly, who died soon after she was born on April 17, 2008…

Almost inconceivable…

Not to mention our rainbow, after the storm, that came to us in September 2009, with the birth of our third child, our daughter, Abby.

So in the 15 years that I was building my life and family with husband, spending quality time with those I care about, doing things I had passion for, as well as learning about secondary infertility, grief, and life after loss, while still enjoying the freedom that most adults have the opportunity to…

A man, named Adnan Syed, was serving time in prison for a serious crime, murder, that I believe he did not commit.

Really?

Seriously?

How is that possible?

Adnan was an honors student in high school.

So was I.

He worked hard to get good grades and prepare himself for adulthood/the next phase of his life.

Me too.

Adnan is Muslim, a man of faith.

I am Catholic, a woman of faith.

He made mistakes.

I certainly have made many.

We all do.

Adnan smoked pot.

I tried weed, once. Though I am not sure if I even really inhaled… And I am pretty sure I didn’t feel any kind of high. I was just humoring an old and dear friend who liked to try to corrupt me and won that round of daring me.

He may have stolen a small amount money from his mosque.

When I studied abroad in London, England, the spring semester of my junior year in college (1996), I stole three half pint glasses (each different sizes and shapes) from various pubs, as souvenirs.

Does that make either of us criminals?

That’s debatable.

Does it make us capable of murdering someone and then lying about it?

I don’t think so.

Does that mean Adnan did not kill his former girlfriend Hae Min Lee?

I don’t know.

But after listening to countless hours of podcasts, reading numbers articles, and blog posts about the case again Adnan, most recently Undisclosed, I am convinced that he should not have been convicted and that he is innocent of this crime.