The Space Between.

Unless one has given up all forms of media for Lent or has spent the last week in a secluded over the water bungalow in Tahiti, you probably know that the face in the picture above belongs to a man named Jamie Hood. Those of us who call The Classic City home are perhaps a little more familiar with his face because it has been plastered on a few billboards around town. If my fellow citizens are anything like me, they were probably on a bit of high alert each and every time they walked out the door to take their dog on a walk near a wooded area that happened to be only a few miles from the crime scene until around Thursday when the authorities narrowed down his whereabouts to a more specific location east and then north of town. [You can take the girl out of Hickory Flat, but you can't take Hickory Flat out of the girl.] The crime that this man committed is heinous. And inexcusable. And senseless. And all of those other one-dimensional words that we use in an attempt to describe a three-dimensional tragedy that will forever impact a number of people far too great to count. But since this picture began to circulate late Tuesday afternoon, the face that I see every single time I look at this picture is an entirely different one. A couple of weeks ago, I visited a local high school in order to speak with a Teen Parent Group about all of the wonders and benefits of higher education that were available to them. Let's be honest: I was probably just as prepared to be the keynote speaker at a robotics convention. Silly me for not anticipating ahead of time the possibility that some of these teen parents may actually have their children with them. I guess there is no other option when the nanny calls in sick at the last minute. I don't incorporate [sardonic] wit and humor to make light of the situation at all. In fact, I probably do it as more of a defense because the whole situation was absolutely heart breaking. You see, in the 10 years that I have been giving presentations to groups of high school students about going to college, not once have I ever presented while holding a baby on my hip. Until that day. And since that day I have not been able to get that precious baby boy out of my mind. He is probably about 18 months old. And like most any other kiddo in that stage of life, he was so busy and full of wonder and happy and easily entertained by something as simple as looking at a Spiderman folder. At least until something shinier caught his eye, anyway. He was the kind of baby that makes you wonder if you could fit him in your purse and carry him home with you. Because the reality is, his reality probably won't be filled with wonder and happiness for all that much longer in comparison to those 18 month olds out in the world living an "ideal" life. His reality is that he has a greater chance of going to jail than he does of going to college one day. So the week's constant news coverage of the loss of a police officer, shooting of another, and search for the shooter has led me to think a lot about the space between. What happens in a person's life between sheer childhood innocence when the natural response is to love all that is in the world and the point of committing murder? How does a person get to the point that he or she feels that the bad choices or obviously very wrong choices are only the ones that they have? How can a person become so hardened that even if he knows that the choice he makes is the wrong one, it doesn't stop him from making it? At what point is it ever okay for one to not have to be responsible for his poor decisions? [Hint: Never.] All of these questions absolutely make me stop and give thanks for grace and love and good people and their positive influence that have been so commonplace in my life. But a little lesson that I've been learning over the past two years or so is that just being thankful isn't my only responsibility. It's really not enough for me to just pause for a few minutes and say "whew, I'm glad that I never have to worry about getting to the point in my life to where I make such stupid decisions" and go about my day of looking at someone's 2009 vacation pictures on Facebook and checking the 5 day forecast to determine if it's going to be worth my time to straighten my hair before rain moves in and ruins the fruits of my labor. On the flip side though, I don't exactly know what is enough either. But I hope that I never become so apathetic by the dismal news that faces us in the headlines each day or absorbed in my own worries that I stop trying to figure it out. As I'm sitting here typing all of this, I notice the time in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. The funeral service for Officer Elmer "Buddy" Christian will begin in about 15 minutes. He is being buried in the cemetery near where I live. All afternoon I have heard the practice shots (???) that I assume are the prelude to the gun salute that will given in his honor during the graveside portion of his service. My heart is very sad for his family. Even though I know nothing about them, I do know a little about losing a family member. And since last Tuesday, his wife and his children have closed one space and entered into a completely new one. It's the space between life when their family was still intact on this earth and the time when it is not. It's probably pretty dark. Of course their grief will be great, but my prayer is that their hope will be greater.