Saturday, July 13 could not have been a day of bigger contrasts for me. Many of my KC Delta girls were in town. I started the day with a wonderful run and met my beloved Alane for a hug. I had my maiden voyage with Capital Bikeshare which gave me a whole new high. Then I met up with my other beloveds Candice, Myra, Carla, Debra, Stasi, Marsha (who would not give me that bag) and even Stephanie (all the way from Australia!!!). As I hugged them and headed home I was positively giddy! THEN...I sat down and checked Facebook. The first update I saw was my cousin Reg's that said "Wow. Message sent and received." I said "uh oh." As I continued to scroll down I switched to twitter, saw the outrage and immediately got nauseous. I turned on the tv saw the defense attorney speak for all of two minutes. I was PISSED. Then...I cried. I sobbed. I wailed uncontrollably. I barely slept because I couldn't stop crying.
I didn't watch one second of the trial for the murder of Trayvon Martin. I couldn't. I was talking to my Mom (she watches the news 24/7) who said every time it came on she turned the sound down because she didn't wanna hear it. She never believed he'd be convicted. I didn't wanna believe he'd get off. In my mind, it was pretty simple. He went after the CHILD with a GUN and that CHILD ends up DEAD. How could he NOT be guilty, right? RIGHT????
Sunday morning while I was waiting to board a plane, I called Melissa. In my MIND, I was calling her to check on her because she'd been sick. But I think my HEART needed her. See, Lissa is that person in my life who can make sense out of anything. She's one of the smartest people I KNOW...probably one of the smartest people in the world. She's ALSO a BRILLIANT judge and legal mind. And my HEART needed to hear from that brilliant legal mind but mostly for her to help me reconcile all of this like she does with everything. She gave me all of the legal reasoning and of course she made me aware of so much more. But she was just as unsettled as I was by it all. She could explain HOW it happened - but she couldn't reconcile it, either.
My mind went to the profound words in The Twelve Tribes of Hattie by Ayana Mathis. It's an EXTRAORDINARY read about Hattie, her husband and their 12 children. Toward the end of the book as Hattie is looking back over her life, the author writes "Hattie believed in God's might but she didn't believe in his interventions. At best, he was indifferent." The first time I read that, I had to put the book down because it jarred me so. I've often asked God why - but these words so succinctly said what I'd actually been too afraid to even think. It's disrespectful, isn't it? While I do believe in God's matchless, unwavering, unconditional love - sometimes it FEELS like he's indifferent and I'd LOVE for him to intervene. I know I know...we'll understand it better by and by but....
Social media is full of people with a range of emotions over Trayvon's murder. People are pissed...and they're hurt. There's so much talk about the perils of being a black man/boy - and I trust and believe that it is perilous. Everybody wants someone to blame. Well you know what I want? Intervention. We've all suffered loss of someone we love. And we all would have liked some kind of intervention. Did the plane with MY friend have to go down? Did cancer have to take these people I love who were so young (and even not so young) yet loved by so many? Did all of those babies in Connecticut have to die? Part of Lissa's explanation was the charges brought by the prosecution. Sounded to me like she basically did a shitty job and didn't really want to prosecute. Then the cocky defense attorney served up their bullshit. And you got a jury of women from the wackass state of Florida. Seems to me the perfect time for an intervention.
But I'm just a woman who loves her child like Tracy and Sybrina loved their son. I simply want love and light to flow and joy to continuously rise and for everything to always be right. And that's just not what life is. I realized these tears that won't stop are for all the interventions I so wished happened that didn't. And it hurts. Bad.
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