To the editor:
I need to respond to the letter written to the editor last week about the death of Joanne Olson. I not only personally knew Joanne all her life but was her friend. I met Daryl in 1992. Both of them were and are good people, but both needed help.
I understand why the writer may have jumped to the defense of Joanne, but if there is one thing I have learned from this heartbreaking tragedy, it is that there are two sides to everything and from the outside no one knows the inside story.
I think every day about how we, as a society, failed them. It is too late to help my friend, but I am determined to help Daryl and people like him who are good people and get caught in a situation where they feel driven from their homes and have nowhere to go. Oftentimes when men call 911 for help they are ridiculed, and yet they need support just as women need it. And let us not forget many times verbal abuse is as harmful as physical.
Carol Godfrey Lundholm
Plymouth