Acts of Violence

Someone recently pointed out to me that I attend a lot of funerals. It does seem like I do. But, as I discussed with my sis-in-law, when you have a large and extended family as ours I guess it raises the percentage.

While I have lost family and friends to old age, cancer, and car accidents, I have never lost anyone to murder. Murder. Just typing the word seems out of place. My second cousin was shot and killed last Friday. And though none of us will ever know the true circumstances surrounding his death, I do know that a young man was senselessly killed. And for what? Now there will be speculation, rumor, an ongoing investigation and a trial that will lengthen the grief of a family to nightmarish aspects. As well, the lives of those suspected in the killing and their families will never be the same. Never.

I didn't know Vincent well. I hadn't seem him since his grandfather's funeral a few years ago and the only other times I saw him were at other family gatherings on my Dad's side of the family,which have grown fewer and far between. He was the tall, handsome guy with the great smile who kept to himself. I don't know anything about his personal life, except that he was going back to school and that he was especially protective of his little sister.

But, that wasn't the Vincent I thought of when my Dad called me with the news. The Vincent I remembered vividly was the little boy with the slicked back hair in his school pictures, or the Vincent in his soccer uniform. A little boy with his whole life ahead of him.

And it made me pause. What does that person think of when they're aiming that gun, when they take a life? Who do they see before them? A son, a grandson, a father, a little boy? I don't think they see that person at all, because if they could see them they wouldn't shoot. Would they?

No person deserves to die a violent death. No parent need grieve over the senseless acts of violence that take their children. Vincent didn't deserve to be shot and left to die alone in his apartment. His parents did not deserve to receive that dreaded knock at the door.

And as the news is filled with more acts of violence, more shootings, more assaults, I wonder how we lost sight of one another, as we seem unable to see the person in front of us. We have become blind to others, blind to the fact that we are all just people trying to live this life the best we can, the best we know how. And, at one time we were all children with a hope, a dream.

I'm afraid that until we truly begin to see one another, take the time to really look for the son, the grandson, that little boy, these heartless acts will continue. I just wish I knew how to make it all stop. I wish I knew how to open all eyes.

Comments

[Chandra]

That was lovely. Sad, but lovely.