Yet.

Consistently over the years, I have felt something missing. I feel it at these conferences; I feel it in the books; I feel it in the case conferences of individual kids and so forth. I have said for years that those of us who haven’t gone through what our kids have gone through can never really comprehend their perspective.  I know, I know….we can try.  But trying doesn’t cut it for me so I can’t believe that it cuts it for them either. My solution has always been: get some of these kids past their histories and let them figure it out. In the same way, for instance, that all twelve step programs use the peers in addictions to help each other, and not the professional “helpers.”  It has been an answer that made sense logically, but it doesn’t solve my issue with the “what is missing.”

Sometime last evening, the word for what’s missing hit me.  It is absolutely so, that we can never be where our kids have been nor experience what they have experienced.  But that was true for the white civil rights fighters from half a century ago. And it’s true right now, for example, for the straight supporters for the gay right to marry.  One need not be part of a particular group to stand with those within the group.

Stand with.

Not “stand above.”  And standing above is what I have experienced as permeating our field.  Our kids are “broken”, “damaged”, “hurt”, and the newest word:  ”traumatized.” “Broken” as measured by where I am. “Damaged” as measured by where I am. “Hurt” as measured by where I am.  And now, “traumatized” as measured by where I am. Or think I am.

And where are we? Above them.  No wonder we can’t figure it out. We will never figure it out while we stand above our kids.

Standing “with” is a recognition that we would have reacted, and responded, exactly as our kids have were we weighed down with the same horrific experiences that, by the way, we as a culture did not protect them from.  Standing “with” is the only true recognition that we will never get it from a position “above.”

In my last post, I talked about my first real supervisor and how abusive he was despite how good he looked. His stance was that he was better than I. He couldn’t put himself in my shoes; because he couldn’t get out of his own.

We have a rule at Family Focus that whatever we create; whatever approach we take must be one that our kids could say, at least, “Fair enough.”  But preferably, would be able to say: “Thank you. Finally someone gets it.”  We should be willing to go under our own knife. Is that too abstract?  Let me make it concrete: we should be willing to live by our own definition of adoption: “unconditional, irrevocable, and forever final.” That means when a foster family tells a kid that they are going to adopt him and then change their mind later on, the child should be removed forthwith, in recognition of the betrayal.  We should be willing to live by our very clear stance: “Adults adopt; children are adopted.” That means that we guarantee that our approaches prevent any blame from falling on the kids for adult decisions. Hell, we should even be willing to turn our case notes over to the kids (when they grow up) and stand behind those notes (fat chance.) Our transitions; our covenants; our concepts must all meet the same rule: would I be willing  to be the kid experiencing these things we have created.

That is what “standing with” means.  No bureaucracy can ever “stand with” in its rules and structures, although individuals within the bureaucracy can.  Standing with is always personal.  Martin Luther King stood with. So, I believe, did Ghandi. And thus their real power.

What is missing from our system is standing with our kids – not (take heed helping professions), standing for our kids. Not, not, not. Until we make that our stance, we will never get it. Standing for is not the same as standing with. It’s not even close. No matter our experience, our brilliance, our education, our logic, and our degrees, if we don’t stand with the kids, we will understand nothing real about them.

And standing with has a name that doesn’t apply to standing for.

It is called: solidarity.

Jack

In addition, we could place a hundred kids over eight years old into adoptive homes tomorrow if we only had the families willing to make the sacrifice and commitment of parenting permanently these multiply betrayed kids.  We have the fee structures, we have the reputation, we have the services. But we don’t have the families. And this economic environment – aka a depression for the very people who would consider adopting such kids – is not helping. (If my job is at risk of being lost, and my house is at risk of foreclosure, I don’t bring new kids into the family.)  It is frustrating always, but heartbreaking at the times when you actually meet a real kid and you have nothing to offer him/her.

So why do I stay?

For many reasons. Here’s only one.

When I was past high school age – both in college and in the working world – I heard more than once from people that I had a problem with authority. And it sure looked that way to me. I knew that I’d had a problem with my father and his authority, especially when I’d come home from school and he’d want to talk to me about my report card and he was, as they used to say, “drunk as a skunk.” At 3 in the afternoon.  I had a real problem with the way he used his authority at those times.

Later on, my first boss at Children’s Village was an articulate, educated, sober, well respected man. And I had tremendous problems with him and his authority. Especially when he would point out to me in supervision, using psychological mumbo-jumbo (I didn’t know it was mumbo-jumbo then) that I had the issue, not him. It caused me a real problem because I didn’t want to leave the job.  Everywhere I turned for advice or help, all I got told – besides being told to shoot the guy – was to suck it up; or to ask for a transfer; or to leave the job.  All of which would avoid the clashes but none of which would help me understand. For all my certainty that I was the one with the problem, my feelings overwhelmingly told me it was my boss, my teacher, my father, and not me.  No matter what, I was stuck. I couldn’t understand if I was blind, or broken, or a victim. And there was no one whom I could find – that’s the key – who could clarify for me.

I spent intense hours, days, weeks, and months trying to figure this out. And, one day, I finally got it. And when I did, a tremendous weight lifted off me and I felt terrific.  It still is off me, and I still do feel terrific. Nothing changed on the outside, and yet everything did. What I saw was that my problem had never been with authority – it had been with the misuse of authority. And that I could identify behaviorally, both what was done wrong, and, better still, how it could have been done right. And the misuse of authority, I later learned, has a name: abuse.  I had a problem – a deep-rooted objection actually – with being abused. I had a bigger problem though with me allowing myself to be abused: by putting up with my father, my teacher, my boss when they were abusive.  I immediately requested a transfer and have never been troubled by the outside accusation of a problem with authority ever again. The internal problem? Gone these past 40 years.

That keeps me at my job?  Among many other things, yep.

Children who have been multiply rejected, have been rejected, by the definition of  what a parent’s responsibility is, through no fault of their own.  A kid who has bounced out of home after home after home is no more responsible for each rejection, then is a kid who, a few generations back, developed, let’s say, polio.  Or more to the point, a kid who speaks only Greek, but is repeatedly placed in a home that not only speaks only English, but has no idea that there is such a language as Greek. Frustration, blame, and rejection are inevitable. It is the job of the adults to figure out how to solve the problems that come up when a multiply rejected child moves into the home of new, perhaps naïve, and probably insufficiently supported, adults.  And they should be figured out BEFORE the kid moves in.

Family Focus gets that. Family Focus gets that kids with bad experiences need clarity on what belongs to whom so they can be freed from any self-blame. Family Focus also gets that that clarity can free someone – as it did me – immediately and for a lifetime (go read “Unbroken” by Laura Hillenbrand for an example of that immediacy and perpetuity of freedom.)  And Family Focus gets that we can find no one else who is doing it (at least that we are aware of.)

We have a very narrow, but very deep focus, and it has helped us come up with some incredible ideas and develop some wonderful approaches over the years.  Our Covenants (see the website) are the single most protective thing that we have developed. And they cost zero to institute. The concept of chocolate milk is the single best protection against self blame for kids whose adoptive “parents” gave them back to the system. And so forth and so on.

Family Focus is focused on figuring out what our kids need from the adults and the system in order for the kids to get unstuck: to become certain to the depths of their identities that they are not broken, nor blind.  No one can do that without a committed parent or parent substitute. Thus, we do this work through the mechanism of adoption. It is a pre-requisite for parent-less kids. But as so many of the families who are struggling with their adopted children whom they love with their whole hearts will tell you: it is not enough.  The kids are struggling to figure something out and no one has figured it out yet.

Family Focus is determined to figure out the rest of what is missing.  We are determined to give our kids, and their families, that. That’s who we are.  No one will fund that search, so we stay poor. But we won’t trade in who we are for any amount of money.  Family Focus recognizes that “there but for the grace of God, go I.”  We recognize that any of us – but for the “bigness” of our own parents or substitute parents – could be one of our kids.

And that’s why I stay.  Could there be a better reason?

Jack

Jack

There are three ways (that I know of) for a diabetic to take their insulin. From most aggravating to less they are:  syringes, “pens,” and “pumps.”

Danny is in the process of moving from the syringes to the pens. The pen looks like an oversize ball point pen. Instead of ink, though, it carries insulin.  The tip is a removable needle which is used one time only.  Yesterday, Danny had half a day of school (don’t get me started) which got him home by 11:15 am.  I had already decided that we’d go check out a summer camp for diabetic kids that is located about an hour and a half from here, in NJ.

When we got off the highway, Danny asked to stop at McDonald’s for our lunch. Fine with me, so we did.  His blood sugar counts weren’t bad, so I let him have the large fries and the sweet and sour (read: sugar) sauce for his chicken nuggets.  We finished lunch and I figured out how much insulin he should get. I gave him the number – more than usual due to the food – and handed him his insulin pen.  And he said, “Grandpa, where’s the needle tip?”  What? What? What?

Internally, I had to do some quick thinking to keep from panicking.  Worse comes to worst, I thought, we can go home. It’s an hour’s ride; the blood sugar is already rising; I knew where the  hospital was on the way home.  We carry an emergency kit at all times, but I had not updated it for the pen.  We had syringes and no insulin for them; we had an insulin pen and no needles for it.  Grr…..Dumb, of course. AKA: a mistake. A simple damn mistake.

But, being a thinking and a reasonable guy, I called the camp. It’s a diabetic camp, after all, and they should have all sorts of supplies. Whew. Problem solved. Till I got their voice mail (huh? We had an appointment.) Back to panic: go home. But I didn’t want to go home and miss this opportunity (ha ha) of the half day.  Next thought: go to a pharmacy and buy the tip. Whew. Shoprite right across the street. So off we went, with me greatly relieved.

We go into the pharmacy – blood sugar steadily rising, remember – and I show them the pen, which obviously makes this legitimate; I explain the problem; and I ask to buy one tip.  ”Sorry, they come in boxes of 100 and we’d have to see if your insurance will cover them.”  ”No,” I say, “I have no time for all that: we were just at McDonald’s and his sugar numbers are rising. I will buy the box and pay for it myself.”  Figuring I can always use them – he goes through 7-8 a day.

“I’m sorry, sir, but we can’t sell them to you without a prescription.”  WHAT? No time to argue, I will call his doctor’s office. Well, I forgot I was going to a residential summer camp: I was in the boonies. NO SIGNAL AT ALL.  I race to the parking lot, finally get through and the signal is breaking up. The doctor can’t hear me. I am running around the lot trying to find a signal and finally find a spot but it only measures about three square inches. Doctor says she will fax over the prescription immediately. I go back inside and wait, and wait, and wait, and wait.  After a half hour, I go back to the parking lot to try to find that tiny piece of real estate where my phone will work.  I can’t find it. “You’re breaking up. I can’t hear you.”  Finally, she seems to realize that I can hear her and she tells me that the prescription has been faxed over. So, I go back inside. No fax. And we wait and we wait and we wait. Ultimately, the pharmacist says he will try. That works and we get our $40 box of 100 tips so Danny can have his now-much-delayed insulin.

At one point, my nephew, who was with us for the ride, recommends that we simply go up and threaten the staff with bodily harm if they don’t give us the one lousy tip we need – or tell them Danny is having a blood sugar reaction of some kind and that will get them to give us the tip.  I point out to him that it won’t work.  They will simply tell us to go the emergency room. By the time we got out of the emergency room we could have been home five times – where there are dozens of tips.

Accidents happen; people make mistakes; folks forget things. Why are we made to go through all this for one lousy tip. Even if at absolute worst I was a heroin addict planning on using an insulin pen (??) to shoot up heroin, so what?  It’d be a one shot shoot up.

On the contrary though, I have id; I have the pen with his name on it etc. etc. etc. Where is simply human problem solving?  One damn tip.  Mistakes need to be allowed for in our bureaucratic systems.

Okay, I am at nearly 900 words. To be continued……

Jack

Did I get the full truth about that painful night? No. Micheal says he doesn’t have that full truth as he left before there was the escalation that certainly brought upon Abe’s death. For various reasons, both from what Micheal said, and what he didn’t say, I believe that to be so. But certainly I don’t know for sure.  Pending discovery of a videotape taken from all angles, I will never know for sure.

So then, did I get what I was looking for?

Yes.

The meeting was only an hour, and it was, as I needed, only Micheal and me.  I left feeling free of some unidentified burden.  I couldn’t name it, but I knew as I walked to my car that I was leaving freer than I had come in.

It wasn’t till yesterday, in a discussion with someone else, that I saw what it was.

I have known for a long time that “being right” and “being in the right” are more often than not only defenses – very weak ones at that – for responding to internal pain.  Being “right” in human relationships leads nowhere but to blame.  And it follows that “being wrong” also leads nowhere.

What does matter is being open.  Despite the pain that wants us to close down so badly. And openness, I am discovering, cannot be conditional on the other being “right.”

The loss of Abraham for me is so beyond painful that I know I still don’t feel anywhere near the fullness of it.  To meet with a man who was convicted of manslaughter in taking from me this son who mattered to me so deeply that I am still in some sort of very real denial that he’s gone would tell me whether or not I had not only lost Abraham, but also lost me.

Could I be as open to this man – to the three of them ultimately – as I am to anyone else?   Or was this now beyond my limit?

I confronted Micheal. There was less of a need for it then I had expected, but I did confront him.  As I do anyone whom I believe has done wrong to me. He got confused at more than one point but he didn’t flinch from trying to respond openly and honestly.  I was glad to discover inside me that I respected him for that.

When I left I told him that I had no problem with him – a back door’s way of forgiveness, I suppose – and asked if he had any problem with me. He did not.  We shook hands and I thanked him for seeing me. He thanked me for coming.  And he asked me again to convey to Abe’s family his regret and apologies for the pain he’d caused us.

I know that there will be much questioning of what I did:

I am fully aware that there are those who will believe I was wrong to go over there.

I am fully aware that there are those who will believe that I was conned by Micheal.

I am fully aware that there are those who will believe that I betrayed Abraham, and all the others whom I love and who love me by meeting with this man who played too big a part in attacking, and hurting, our family.

I know all this.  But I also know this:

The three of them took Abe, but they weren’t able to take me in the process. I left the prison with me intact; I left the prison maybe even more open than I was the day before Abraham died.  That openness is the only foundation strong enough for any relationship even those we have with ourselves.  Were it to turn out that I was somehow absolutely wrong to go over there, I’d accept the responsibility for that, apologize to those I’d wronged, and deal with the consequences.

But I came home “open.”  How then, no matter how “wrong,” could I have been wrong?

My experience tells me that violations of justice are always done by people who are closed and insist on staying that way.

That’s not for me. Open trumps “right” every time.

And, beyond justice, it is the only measure of integrity that we have.

Jack

Fear of liability is another life-killing version of bureaucracy.  And so I was not allowed into the prison to visit Micheal this morning. I suppose they recognized my name somehow – Brennan must be attached to Micheal’s records because of Abe, and so they stopped me, without of course telling me why they stopped me.  I wonder, of course, what they would have done had we had different last names.

In any event, about an hour after I registered, they finally sent a CO down to talk to me.  First he confirmed with me that Abe was my son.  And then he told me that they had gone up through the ranks, right to the warden’s office and it was agreed by all these levels that this wasn’t the proper venue for this “meeting.”  Like it’s any of their damn business.  He told me to call the warden directly, which I will this afternoon, and that “victim services” would be the people to set up the meeting.  Victim?  Now I’m a “victim?” Please….the only victimization I experienced is the victimization of defining me as they choose to define me, and then acting on their definition.

The fact that Micheal had asked me to come as soon as possible; the fact that I told the CO that I had no bitterness towards these kids and simply wanted to talk person to person; that fact that they would never have known who I was if Abe and I had different last names, meant nothing.  What meant something – it finally slipped through his lips – was “liability.” Uh-huh. I should have guessed. They were all afraid of being held liable for allowing this visit.

My definition of liability: the fear of taking responsibility.  Were our positions reversed, i.e, myself and the warden, I would have simply checked with both parties that they wanted this meeting and I would have allowed it. What did they think?  That my 61 year old self was going to choke this 30 year old guy?  There was nothing else I could have done: I was not even allowed to bring my wallet into the prison, let alone any kind of weapon. Why didn’t they have the simple respect of giving me a meeting with the warden right then and there?

So now they will try to make some huge deal out of a simple visit between two human beings, each of whom wishes to face the other.  But such human interaction – freely chosen human interaction – is never factored into any kind of bureaucracy.

I have seen this kind of thing before. The fear of “liability” is a de-humanizing weapon always wielded by those who are afraid to stand up for right, or worse, by those with no understanding that there is such a thing as “right.”

To close with a Shakespeare paraphrase:

“There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio,
Than are dreamt of in your [bureaucratic] philosophy.” {Italized word added by me}

Far more. And they are far more interesting and life-affirming besides.

Jack

And then – last night – I, who always sleep solidly, woke up three or four times. Nothing in particular that I could catch: I just woke up.  Anxiety, I suppose. Doubt, maybe.

What am I doing with making this decision?  You can’t spend serious time working with foster children without recognizing that some few of them – still too many – end up in jail or even prison. So, I have visited many a prison in my time, including visiting Abraham there. And I have visited prisoners who were responsible – some directly, some indirectly – for the death of other people.  But this morning I am planning on visiting one of the guys responsible for the death of Abraham…….my Abraham……..my son Abraham.

I want to go and hear whatever I will hear about that night six months ago.  And I won’t stay if I hear nonsense.  But I don’t think I will. It has to take some courage for these two to give permission to sit down alone with me, with no family, no lawyers.  The one guy I meet this morning – Micheal – said that he wanted to contact me earlier and his lawyer told him not to. Why am I so certain that that is true?  And why am I so certain that that advice, in the totality of  this guy’s life was so wrong? For Micheal, for me, and for both of our families.

Is this going over there this morning a mistake?  I chose to write this morning – maybe to help me stay together – because whatever I would write after the visit will be influenced by the visit. I ask myself why I am doing this visit. Why – beyond that first question – am I referring to this guy by his first name? Certainly, whatever story I hear will be a biased one, I know. He will have to defend himself from the horror of the consequences of his decisions made and not made that night.  I get that. But he was there; I was not.  He knows things that happened that night that I not only don’t, but I have no way of  finding out. There is no videotape for me to view.  I want to hear Micheal’s perspective.

And, therefore, it has to be “Micheal.”  Going in there as an adversary won’t get me what I want or what I need from this man: openness to the truth.  I am not looking to blame him for Abe’s death.  The fact that Abe was not the first of my kids to be taken from me, has given me years, even decades in Gilbert’s case, to recognize where my issues are. They are with God, not with any person on earth. It is with God that my conversation about the deaths of my kids really needs to take place.

What do I want today? I want as much truth as I can get.  But I also want to give “Micheal” whatever true justice I can give him as Abe’s father.  Not “justice” in the sense of revenge, or pain.  Rather, justice, as truth, which might well be painful. Which means I go in there this morning open to who he is and responsive to him, and here’s the kicker: responsive to him as though he were mine.

That may be the most damning statement of how I think that I have ever publicly made.

But I believe it to the core of whom I have chosen to be my whole life.

Jack

Danny has finally – after three months – started school.  Were I to keep him out of school for three months, I’d be charged immediately with child abuse.  I’m glad he’s finally there, of course, but I have to wake him up at 5:45 am for him to make his bus 45 minutes later, so school can start at 7:15.  All the research that I have seen in recent years says that kids from his age on up need to start school later in the day, rather than earlier.  So is this schedule based on the needs of the kids? Or on someone else’s needs? It feels abusive to me. But I do finally have some uninterrupted periods of time where I can concentrate. Yet, I posted during his first two months here with no school and much too few of those uninterrupted times…..

I have finally found Abraham’s grave. That has been haunting me. His widow, in retaliation, I assume, for whatever grievous insult she apparently suffered at our hands, would not even tell us if he was buried – let alone, where. But with my nephew I went out searching last week and found it.  There is no headstone, of course. And I am forbidden to put one up – only the owner of the plot can do that.  So the only marker is the temporary one from the funeral home, with Abe’s name, his street nickname, and the dates of his birth and death. It is not how I wanted him buried, and I am more furious at him for marrying this woman who, as a result, had total control of his funeral, than I am at her.  How a one year marriage legally trumps twenty five years of parenting is beyond me.

And then there was the waiting for the sentencing of Abe’s killers. It happened as scheduled.  Two of them got 2-6 years; the third got 3-6 as he had an earlier felony.  Another of my adult sons, took time off from work to go to the sentencing. I couldn’t risk it, lest his widow be there – as she was scheduled to speak. I’d have said things to her that I would not be proud of. But, she didn’t show, so no one was there from the family except my son.  He reported that one of the guys did apologize in open court and that the family of one of them (same one?) came up to him afterwards and also apologized.  It’s interesting how that made me feel better – not for me really. How does an apology make up for taking my son’s life?  But it made me feel better for that guy.  It gave me hope that maybe he woke up – there is that consistent phrase of mine again: “woke up.”

I decided, after thinking about it for nearly six months,  that I want to speak to these three. Now that all the legal stuff is over, I can’t imagine that they have anything to lose, by agreeing to such.  My son asked me last night what would be my point. I don’t really know. Certainly, I want to know from their perspective what happened.  But there is something deeper going on there: three more ruined lives will not make me feel any better about Abe’s death.  Revenge really is hollow.  But maybe by having a conversation with me, each of them could come to terms with what they did and turn it into some positive re-start. That’s not why I want to meet with them, though. I need to do it for me.  Maybe standing in for Abe, were he alive to do it? A closure of some sort?  I don’t know.  In any event, I wrote to each of them  in state prison yesterday. We’ll see what happens.

So, what does all this have to do with my postings? I’m not sure. This blog is supposed to be about my perspectives on foster care adoption, and certainly Abe’s death moved the blog immediately and heavily into a very personal realm. Maybe I’ve needed some way to put closure to all that’s happened both with Abe and Danny, so I could get back to “normal.”  I don’t know.

But, curiously, writing this to post to the blog is lifting a weight off me regarding the blog. I would have felt phony dealing with any other topic before I dealt with these. I opened them up in the blog; I suppose I felt I had to close them.  They are now closed.

I hope.

Jack

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,200 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Justin and his brother, Kevin, are the best friends of my grandson Bobby, Abe’s son.  They have ridden from Utica to the Bronx with me more than once; they have spent the night in my house – twice. They have eaten breakfast with us in my kitchen and dinner, in my dining room.  They have had real conversations with me; made real connections to me. But now, Justin is gone. Sixteen years old.

His funeral is in the morning.  Forty years ago to the day of my eighteen year old brother’s (Aunt Rita’s son) funeral.  Bobby was killed by a drunken driver driving the wrong way on the Long Island Expressway two days before what still stands as the worst Christmas of my life.

There were some in the family who wanted to go get that guy – he was in the same hospital as my surviving brother was.  I’m glad they didn’t. They’d have ruined their lives for no good purpose.

The police haven’t caught the guy who shot Justin yet. And I badly want that guy caught – that’s how it feels.  But really, I don’t care about him. I want Justin back.  Forty years ago, we wanted Bobby back.

Later on Tuesday, the day of Justin’s death, the three guys who beat Abraham pled to manslaughter, with the promise of six years max in state prison, when they are sentenced in January.  We weren’t told till afterwards when we were offered a chance to make a victim’s statement at sentencing.  No thanks.

I don’t know what justice is for those three guys; I don’t know what justice is for the guy who killed Justin; I don’t know what justice would have been for the guy who killed Bobby.  Eye for an eye? Life for a life? Momentary revenge. How does that help?  Bobby’s wake was finished forty years ago tonight – and still I feel his loss.  I feel Justin’s loss. I feel – still to only some degree – Abraham’s loss.

I am not saying let the perpertrators walk away. But six years, ten years, twenty years?  What difference does it make?

The first of my kids, and the oldest, was in prison in Florida where he died in 1995.  A few years before he died, I went to visit him and the authorities gave us a private room to visit as it was off visiting days or something and they took pity on my New York self.

Ricky was telling me how I didn’t understand him. I didn’t get how bad he was; how angry; how he wanted to kill everybody.  I surprised him when I laughed at that.  I told him that his anger was not much different than mine was. That I, too, wanted to kill everybody.  That if I had my way, I’d kill them all.  But with one, and only one, difference from him.  I told him that after they were dead, I’d bring them back to life to see whether or not they now got it – did they see the extent of the damage they’d done to others, including to him, with their refusals to think?  Were they thinking now? And if they weren’t, then I’d kill them again. And bring them back to life again to see if they yet got it. And if not, I’d kill them again and again and again and again. I’d kill them – I told Ricky – until they either got it, or till God told me that the next time I killed them, they’d stay dead. Then, and only then, I’d stop.

“Because, Ricky, exactly like you, I don’t really want them dead. I just want them to stop their shit.”

Ricky was stunned that I – a person, to his eyes, who was so incredibly different from him – could even talk of having such anger and rage. It transformed his perspective on me certainly, but also on himself.

Justice for killing Bobby?  Justice for killing Abraham?  Justice for killing Justin?

All I want is for each of the killers, all of them, to wake up to the losses they have been responsible for and the incredible pain they have caused – a pain and loss that are felt for decades and decades.  Will six years in state prison do that?  Would sixteen? Or sixty?

Lock them away till they get it?  I don’t know how we’d know.

I know I miss Justin – and it’s barely a week; I know I miss Abe and it’s not yet even five months;  and I know I miss Bobby – and it’s been forty years.

There is no justice for those losses. For those pains.  There is only hope for the perpetrators, somehow, some way, some time, to wake up. And to begin to think.

A sad night for me.

In 1971 and, again, and still, tonight.

Jack