Thank God I am not the person today I was in high school. I was angry. I was lonely. I had no self-esteem. I was unmotivated. I know one person whose life I made difficult…and I’m sure there were more.
I am a very judgmental person. I take no prisoners when I feel justified in defending my pack. I’ve built walls around my heart to defend me from more hurt…from men, from ‘friends,’ from church folk, from the general population.
I don’t trust easily…but when I trust I do so wholeheartedly. I don’t live easily, but when I do it is for life…you forever possess a piece of my heart.
Yesterday I learned that a girl I grew up with died in a tragic way…she was murdered in the dark of night in a city she should have avoided. When we were in high school, she wouldn’t have cast a glance my way let alone a kind word.
She was a daughter, however. She was a sister. She was a mother. She was a wife. She was a human being.
The question I pose us this: at what point does one human being decide that another’s life has no value, that it is acceptable to take someone else’s life? Who gives you that right? Further, at what point do I get to decide, not as a murderer but as a fellow human being, oh well, when she was in high school she was mean so, goodbye? She had an addiction, so her life holds less value than mine?
My walls are down. I’m vulnerable. Over the next few weeks, I have a lot of apologies to make. But in the meantime, I will be mourning the death of a mother, a daughter, a wife, a woman whose life was ended prematurely, whose children will graduate high school and get ready for prom and get married without the faintest hope that their mommy will show up.
Deneen White 