Tonight all I can see is the mug shot of a young man, an 18-year old kid I do not know. And it feels impossible.
Last Thursday, a few short blocks from where I now sit at my desk, he unloaded over forty shots at another young man.
It was 9:30 pm. Still early in my book—sometimes I may even be out with the dog, my Army-issue reflector belt (a gift from my safety conscious son-in-law) aglow in the passing headlights.
Thursday night the unbelievable, undeniable, now forever saved to Twitter, sound of gunshots filled the cool night air.
Our neighborhood Facebook group erupted with well-founded cries of dismay, fear, even despair, at what has become of our treelined streets, of our town, of our world?
Thankfully the intended victim was merely wounded in the foot—bad aim, adrenaline shaky fingers, a drug-addled shooter—I don’t know what saved his life.
But I do know another life ended: that of the boy in the mug shot.
Just a few years ago he could have been trick-or-treating at my door. I would have commented on his scary Scream mask, or his vampire teeth, or his weird pumpkin head, while I tossed Ring Pops and tiny candy bars into his crumply plastic grocery sack.
One of the very kids I saw this Halloween could be the one holding the gun a few years from now.
What happens in between? How does a kid go from trick-or-treater running door to door, to a shooter riddling a brick ranch house with bullets?
And what are we doing, or not doing, to raise these kids over and over and over again.
Once, quite a while ago now, we sat at our dining room table in the middle of a sunny day. Not where we would typically be found.
Across from us, a couple struggling to find their footing. Convinced there was an easier way. Certain, for whatever misguided reason, that we might have the answer.
At one point, after several suggestions, ideas, offers of practical assistance including transportation to and from GED classes, one of our visitors said that no one on our road had struggles as hard as theirs.
Her comment sat for a moment in a room that still vibrated with distress, ours and theirs, and a myriad possibilities for escape.
Then my husband said, “That just is not true.” In a matter of seconds he paid homage to the suffering in each home within actual sight of that room—and that was just what we knew about.
None of it mattered then and it probably wouldn’t matter now. Where we choose to see the impossible, many times that is all we will see.
Sometimes that is all we can see.
This afternoon, the type of golden October day when everything should seem possible, I talked with my friend, a 25-year veteran teacher, about that mug shot. About the kid he once was and the young man he has become.
We talked about what seems impossible. Breaking the cycle. Seeing the signs. Reaching the heart. Saving the soul. In quite literal terms, saving the kid.
We had no answers.
I have no answers.
Every time I see a mug shot in the paper, even those of perpetrators of the worst crimes, I see the kid behind the deadened eyes. I see the chubby little face and the wide-eyed hopeful grin at my door.
I see a kid who didn’t get what he or she needed.
Maybe they never spent a night without fear. Or slept in a clean bed. Or if they had a clean bed, maybe it was violated.
Maybe they never knew where their parents were. Or their house was filled with silence.
Or worse.
Maybe they needed a grown-up, at least one, to act like a grown-up.
Maybe they never got to skip down a country lane in October wearing fairy wings, believing anything, anything, is possible.
Words and Pictures 