Medea Curry writes to a man who is serving time in prison.
They correspond about life, religion and why he committed the crime that he did. And they have been exchanging these letters for more than two years.
Almost six years have passed since that man raped Medea.
She was a 15-year-old sophomore in high school when all of this happened. She was sleeping in on the Saturday after her high school homecoming; her mother was on vacation, and her brother was at work when this man broke in and stole her high school life away.
"I was paranoid by myself," said Medea, now a senior at Ball State. "I quit dancing; I quit cheerleading, and I stopped doing schoolwork."
To help her return to normalcy, her family remodeled the house. When that didn't work, they moved entirely.
Different people respond to crises in different ways. Some -- through no fault of their own -- are overwhelmed with the hand life has dealt them. Depression is often the result in the best of situations, and in the worst, suicide attempts.
Medea, however, responded beautifully to her adversity. Her first source of comfort was her then-boyfriend, Matt Bilskie.
Bilskie, then a high school senior, was Medea's "rock" -- both before and after he was suspected in the rape.
Bilskie is a success story in his own right. After graduating from high school, which ended his relationship with Medea, Matt turned to drugs and alcohol as a comfort.
A few years later, he sat in a bath tub with a razor blade pressed against his wrist. He did not follow through with his instinct, though, and has since recovered. He is on the cusp of graduating from Ball State with a degree in graphic design.
Medea's next step to overcome the situation was through justice, she said. Her rapist -- a friend of her brother's -- confessed and was sentenced to 40 years in prison.
"After that was over, I felt that part of high school was stolen," Medea said. "Now I felt home free."
Medea said, though, that she never really was home free ... not until 2000. That year, a friend took her on a Christian retreat, where Medea found peace with God and with the man who had sinned against her.
"I was able to forgive this guy that raped me," Medea said. "I never felt so much freedom in my life."
After a few years of counseling, Medea thought it was time to let the rapist know that he was forgiven in her eyes. She wrote him a letter one evening, and their correspondence began.
She has discussed her religious faith with this man and he has since also confessed to be a Christian.
"He said he was saved and found the Lord," Medea said. "I totally believe God can do that."
Write to Jay at
jdkenworthy@bsu.edu
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