One of the sweetest children I ever knew

I don't know that it's a good idea to blog in my current emotional state, however, I feel compelled to do so. Before I explain the reasons for my emotional state, I need to go back about five years.

As I entered Western Village Academy for my first day as an official employee I had the pleasure of meeting a kindergarten student (I shall not post his name for anonymity's sake) who was whimsical, outrageous, adorable, imaginative (more so than any child I have met since), entertaining, and a million other positive adjectives I could list. I eagerly awaited "share time" every morning to hear the outlandish and creative stories he would concoct with which to mesmerize the group. He was just that: a mesmerizing individual. I never heard anybody say a bad word about the child even when he pulled his pants down on the field trip to the pumpkin patch to prove to one of the adult chaperones that he was, in fact, a boy. This wonderful child was one of the two or three kids that kept pulling me back to Western Village during my year-long absence. The year I was gone, I often reminisced of my special moments with this young man.

Yesterday, this beautiful child was shot in the head through the front window of his house. He passed away about three hours ago.

I cannot put into words the emotions I have experienced in this last minute window of time (which has felt like an eternity). I have experience rage, hatred, bitterness, anger, sorrow, and many other emotions. I have heard the police say on the news that they don't know what prompted this 4:00 a.m. shooting. We all know. Everyone in the neighborhood knows. Probably half the kids in the school know, even some of the Pre-K kids. Neighborhood violence prematurely took this happy-go-lucky Angel from this cruel world.

I have had more thoughts in the past hour than I've had in a week. I wonder, "What am I doing in a place every day where many of my precious children are destined to be shot or even be the shooter themselves?" or "What is the point of me being here when violence and wrath is a way of life from which I can't protect these children?" or "What could I have done more than I did to make a difference in that child's life?"

The cards in the front passenger seat of my car that my current students made for him (along with one of my own) sit glaring at me as a chilling reminder that I can't take the cards to him. As I drove down the road to my house trying to see the road through a cloud of tears, noises of anguish came out of body as I did not know I was capable of producing. I am usually emotionless to a fault.

It is eerie how this child has come up in the thoughts and conversations of so many school employees so frequently in the past couple of weeks because though he lives a block and a half from the school, he had been attending a private school for the past year and a half.

None of this whole ordeal seemed real until he died. The school was abuzz with the news for the past two days, and I discussed it with colleagues myself. It was like I was talking about some fictitious movie. But this is real. This is the life a lot of my students live. This is what they have to live with every day and night and every 4:00 a.m. that rolls around. I sit in my nice little condo with my nice little life doing my nice little homework for my nice little grad school classes planning my nice little basketball tournament - for what? My life isn't reality - it's a picturesque little fairy land. Reality for a lot of people is not going outside to ride your bike because you're afraid. Growing up to do and/or deal drugs. Being the daughter of a prostitute that is murdered by a serial killer. Being a son who watches his mom's boyfriend kill his own mom. Getting shot in your own bed. How come I have it so good? How come I can't help people who don't? I have a lot of unanswered (and maybe unanswerable) questions right now. I did not make one of those things up. I have had a kid in my class that has had all those things happen to them except for the drugs which is inevitable for many of them. I don't know if I can take this. I don't know if I can face those kids in the morning or in days and weeks to come.