Yesterday was a bad day. One of those beaten-down days. One of those balancing-act days where you are so exhausted and so worn out that you feel like falling off the metaphorical edge is the only way you are going to get some rest.
I was working on my final paper for class (truthfully, I was supposed to be doing something else but it got horribly derailed – by – I will say it – someone else’s total incompetence). But it was a quiet night and I was making some headway in my work and trying to stay focused..
I took a break to check my email which I had not looked at for most of the day and I saw, among many others, an email that someone had sent me just twenty minutes prior with “Hope and New Orleans” in the subject box.
The email he sent me aroused the quintessential definition of mixed emotions. He was walking into Whole Foods and he saw one of my pieces and was moved and wanted to buy it. That’s always good. But… He was a middle school teacher and the reason why he wanted it was because one of their students was killed on Friday – a fifteen-year old boy. Brandon. He was shot in the back of the head walking home from a pick-up basketball game. He liked sports and his family. I remembered sitting in my hammock on my back porch Saturday morning and reading that story in the newspaper, probably doing what most people do – a brief pause, a deep sigh for the family and loved ones, a shake of the head for the whole senselessness of it all – and then getting back to the day. They broke the news to the school that afternoon (Monday) and, of course, everyone took it pretty hard. But that alone was not why he wanted the photograph.
That same afternoon they discovered that his fifteen-year-old girlfriend had also been gunned down. A homeless man discovered her “bullet-ridden” body. 15 YEAR OLD BULLET-RIDDEN BODY. Her name was Christine. She wanted to open a group home that would empower girls. They were planning to break the news to the students this morning. He wanted to use my piece as a centerpiece of a shrine that students could leave letters and notes and pictures. Maybe help them heal.
I gave him a big discount on the piece and then felt bad it wasn’t bigger.
And I felt a bit helpless. I try to imagine what their families must feel and what they must be going through, as they thought of “never again”… Never again will I see her. Never again will I touch him. Never again will I hear them laugh. Never again will I dream of their future. NEVER AGAIN. And whole generations end with a bullet.
And the teacher sent me a photo this morning with the flowers and letters around my photo – but I feel a bit odd about posting it, so I won’t. Something I want to keep close to me.
But I HOPE maybe my photo made a difference, and perhaps brought some ease. But I don’t know. I have always believed that art heals. Always – at least for myself. But never thought that my art could. Never ventured outside myself because… why would I? Seriously.
How can art heal gunshot wounds and children in the ground?
I am sorry for their family’s loss. I am sorry that we live in this world where the childish panacea is a bullet in a brain.
All I can do is hope.
Hope that something changes.