"Somebody's Child"

It was as if someone had slapped me in the face. There was a news break in the middle of a routine Saturday night rerun of "Law and Order".

Three young kids (12, 13, and 15) had been standing on the street corner of a major road here in our increasingly violent city. It had been sometime between eight-thirty and nine o'clock on Friday night. They were just "hanging out" -- talking -- enjoying the nice evening.

Oh, yes, and they happened to be African-American. They were young Black kids, with all of life ahead of them.

One report stated that a bicyclist rode by, someone who observers thought might have been in his late teens or early twenties. Others said a fight was taking place nearby, and, again, some random person walked by these kids.

This would be a normal scene for a street corner on a late summer's night in Rochester, New York.

The most terrifying part of what occurred next is that it has become an ever more frequent report of a nightmare in the community of which I am a part.

The man shot all three kids. One boy was shot in the leg. The second boy was shot in the back and has needed two surgeries so far.

That last child -- the twelve year old girl-- well, this one was unspeakable, so much so that the reporter was having difficulty. He had shot her in the face, and she was in critical condition.

The station showed a recent photo of this lovely young woman with a big, beautiful smile.

How could anyone do this? I sat on the couch, not really watching the television at all, with tears streaming down my face. Then I just sobbed.

When the eleven o'clock news came on a few minutes later, they interviewed a teenager who had been there. The news station reported that police were following any leads they could to try to track this man down. And the girl was still in critical condition.

I kept thinking of that smiling girl in the photo. How could a human being shoot another person in the face?

There was a pause in the reporting, and then the newsperson, once again having to work to hold back tears, told us that this young girl had just died. 11:15 p.m. It was about that time that another inner city family in my hometown lost a child.

Her name was Camry. The three kids had been headed to church.

All I could think of was the song I wrote in September of 2005, after another news report had left me stunned. That day a fifteen year old inner city boy was shot while walking home from the neighborhood community center. He had gone for tutoring after school and took a shortcut across the open lot nearby. His death was the fifth one in three months, all of kids under the age of sixteen.

There are no words to the sadness and the outrage I feel. I have been on disability for eighteen and a half years, but I am always a pastor and always a teacher. I care deeply about the welfare of those with whom I go through life.

I use public transportation. I have been down this bus route many times. I have probably sat across from these three friends on one of those trips.

Once more, I am determined to finish the recording and mixing of this song. I want to send it to the news stations and the mayor and the inner city churches. I hope it might bring healing to someone, somewhere.

SOMEBODY'S CHILD (c) 2006 Mary Lou Worster Anderson

Now the hours of light grow shorter each day,
We glimpse the changes of fall.
But the darkness which around us grows
Is not from the season at all.

And I cry each night, and I pray each day,
For our streets have become so wild.
And every tear that runs down my face
Is for somebody's darling, somebody's child.

Sadness like a blanket weighs down,
I can barely watch news any more.
I don't have to look around the globe
To find a city at war.

And I cry each night, and I pray each day,
For our streets have become so wild.
And every tear that runs down my face
Is for somebody's darling, somebody's child.

On my street, I see each bright young face:
The laughter, the dreams, and the smiles.
Who will they be? What will they become
As they travel life's journeys and miles.

And I cry each night, and I pray each day,
For our streets have become so wild.
And every tear that runs down my face
Is for somebody's darling, somebody's child.

And I cry each night, and I pray each day,
For our streets have become so wild.
And every tear that runs down my face
Is for somebody's darling, somebody's child --

Is for EVERYONE'S DARLING, EVERYONE'S CHILD.

Surfing The Night

A gift was delivered to me yesterday morning. I had asked that this wish gift might be delivered by a giant stork. However, a newly found friend, a high school classmate of forty-some years ago, had cared more than I realized about my slow descent into deepening depression after my mother's sturdy, but very old computer died.

After reading my Facebook request for a used computer airlifted into my apartment by a giant stork, he asked if a computer sent by a giant dork would do!! This made me smile and laugh. He had actually obtained permission from his boss to send an old computer to me. Such unexpected kindness lifted away the increasing sense of isolation.

He did not tell me it would be a laptop. He did not tell me he would put a spacesaver page of beautiful butterflies on it. He did not tell me it would come to me this soon.

When the doorbell rang at 10:30 yesterday morning, I was still sound asleep. I managed to stumble out of bed and get the door just as the FedEx man was about to get back into his truck. Though I never feel well for the first few hours after I awaken (a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome annoyance), I managed to open the box and begin to set up this computer in a semi-dream state. After two hours, with a pounding headache, I remembered that this diabetic body was demanding food!!

In the past few days, I have experienced a sense of movement, just as I would near the waves of the ocean. I purchased some new clothes at a phenomenal sale, and purposely choose a completely different look for myself. It is not just that I have lost weight. It is that my sense of myself has changed.

And this computer is a part of that movement. It is not merely a functional replacement for something that is broken. It is a tremendous gift of grace. Because it is a laptop, I will be able to write even more freely than I could before, as illness has brought about the necessity for a tremendous amount of bedrest and/or reclining.

However, I am learning how to move within this limitation. It has taken me a long time to do so.

I have been seriously ill, to the point of not being able to maintain any full or part-time work, for almost nineteen years. For many of those years, I tried to return to different kinds of work or train for something new.

By the year 2000, when I realized I was having difficulty standing up for very long, I began to know that my expectations for life had to change. If my physical movement would be limited, then I had to increase the free movement of my creativity, mind, music, relationships, and spirituality. It took me until sometime in 2008 to come to terms with acceptance of this situation.

Of course, I still hope for improvement, new treatments, renewed strength, and unexpected healings. In the meantime, however, I have decided to "surf the waves" of my own creativity. I am determined to find as many activities as possible that I can do while reclining. So far, this has included knitting very thick, colorful scarves (that I call "Rochester" scarves, for our cold, damp winters); working on the lyrics and music of songwriting; working on the writing of a book on my experience of homelessness for five and a half months in 2001-2002; and building (and rebuilding) a large network of friends and family.

So, in the middle of this night, when I would normally be sleeping, I am "surfing the night". I am hyped up by new possibilities. I am smiling for the first time in quite a while. I feel the beating of my heart and the freeform dancing of hope.