It was the best of times, it was the worst of times….

In the month of February in the year 1988 two boy children were born in this, our great city. One white, born with great physical limitations, condemned to a life of seemingly endless pain and sorrow. The second black, also born with what some consider a limitation but many more possibilities than the first boy. They both attended local schools, becoming part and parcel of this community.

The first was lucky enough to be born into a devoted family, extended family with many friends. He never lacked for love, care or such opportunities that his life afforded. He passed away in 2004 loved, quietly with dignity, after bringing laughter, joy, insight and tolerance into all the lives he touched.

The second child was born into similar circumstances, but something went terribly wrong along the line. This child grew into a youth, who in2006, the second year after the first died, committed an act of retaliation. He , feeling he had been “dissed” by a neighbor girl, waited till an opportunity presented itself. Calmly he wrapped a kitchen knife in tape, waited till the parents went to work leaving the girl alone, and walked across the street with his weapon. Knocking on the door ,the victim opened it and he began his attack~ eventually after suffering numerous stab wounds to the face and body and fighting him off through out the house she realized she had best feign death or he would kill her. Her ruse worked. He calmly dropped the knife, walked across the street to his home ,his ego repaired from her rebuffs at his attention, showered and with the help of his brothers disposed of the bloody clothes. Meanwhile she crawled to the phone for help, when the police arrived the boy stood smiling in his front yard, beaming with pride and menace as her parents and sisters arrived. She was rushed to the E.R., giving enough information for the attacker to be arrested before she was rushed into surgery. After several anxious hours her family found she would live, and not be horribly scared~ at least obviously.

This family while waiting for the wheels of justice to slowly grind has had to live across from the “alleged” perpetrators family had to endure taunts of “whoever tried to kill that b***h, did not do a good enough job” and the like. The mother and her young daughters live in fear, nightmares a weekly consequence. They all will need long term counseling to deal with the effects of such an act.

The youth stays in a facility awaiting trial for his crime, to which he has pleaded innocent. The trial begins in this month. I hope to be able to report back that justice was metered out. I wonder what is justice here?

I have no answers as to how this happened~ I could consider hopelessness, poverty, stigma, fear of a unknown and horrible future. But I know better.

You see I was the mother of the first young man, all those reasons applied to me and to our situation. So I am left only with darkness of the human heart~ that somewhere amidst all the muscle, the coursing blood, is a unknown organ of hate lurking in the very organ that represents love.

How do you legislate against that?

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