The Melanie Rieger Conference

Melanie Ilene Rieger



It begins with the wailing of bagpipes, a crying instrument if ever there was one that could mimic the sound of human suffering, and the precise choreography of an honor guard, footsteps echoing in the auditorium as they enter and as they exit.

A video flickers upon the screens in front of the room and you are drawn immediately to the smile of a beautiful young girl - family photographs of fishing trips, vacations, proms, all the Kodak moments that constitute a life. You smile as you watch her grow before your eyes until you remember that she is dead, that she is the reason her parents are sitting on that stage, that she is the reason hundreds of people have gathered here to reflect, to remember, to find comfort, strength, and the will to transform adversity into something more enduring and positive. She is Melanie Ilene Rieger, murdered at 19 in her own home by her ex-boyfriend.

As you watch Melanie dance across that screen, her youth and vitality strike you. She will never know life’s joys and pains; she is forever young and will never fret over gray hair or the onset of that first wrinkle around the eyes. That is her triumph? No, that is her tragedy - that she will never know, that we will never know the good Melanie would have contributed to this world had she lived. You feel that pain every moment she is on the screen, and you will avert your eyes because it becomes too much to bear as you choke back your tears. You will turn your head, but you will never escape because you have seen her now, been touched by her smile, and know she is gone. The hundreds of people sitting in this room are all moved, all of them touched not only by Melanie, but by their own tragedies, and it is their heartache that has led them here to share, to listen, to learn what it means to survive the loss of a loved one to violence.

This is the Melanie Ilene Rieger Memorial Conference Against Violence and what you learn here will last you a lifetime.

--written by Linda Principe