I'm sitting here just back from my hubby's company Christmas party a little inebriated and wondering if I should be writing at all. But perhaps it's best to write after a few glasses of red wine? As I was celebrating Christmas with wonderful people from all different walks of life, flashes of memories and thoughts kept flashing through my mind of a particular person in my past.
Randall R******n. Thoughts of him make my soul ache for so many reasons. Flashes of him have been dancing through my mind for the last week.
You see, I went to highschool with Randall. I remember him as a dear friend to me and my brother. He was one of very few African American kids in our little private school and I know that things were probably not that easy for him...so much racist crap to deal with those days...I can't imagine. I remember his father as being a very dignified professor and his mother as a perfectly quaffed elegant, beautiful and well spoken lady.
I miss Randall. I sort of wish I could call him and catch up and talk about all of the years that we lost touch. What we are doing in our lives and how we remember each other when we were young. But I can't. And I hate it and it really fucking sucks because Randall was murdered when he was 23.
Randall was working his way through and paying his dues as a manager of a Roy Rodgers restaurant in Philadelphia while going to school to become a chef. One day two adolescent criminals came into the store around closing or opening (I'm not really sure) and demanded money from the safe. Randall paid them and then took off running into the parking lot of the store. (Randall was an amazing athlete and could run like the wind. I know because I watched so many times when he played soccar with my brother for the highschool team). My dear friend was chased by these two fucking thugs and beaten to death with a lead pipe in the parking lot. I can only hope that he did not suffer too much and that the knowledge of his young life fading away was a welcome rest from the violence overwhelming him at that moment.
My mother called to tell me the news of Randall's death in the early nineties. Was it 1992 or 93? I'm not sure. Another friend from highschool called my mother sobbing to tell her the news. I remember hearing it through the phone and feeling emotionally blocked and unable to cry. I wish I had cried and sobbed until it was all out of me, but I didn't. I'm crying right now. I'll probably cry about this the rest of my life.
Last year (Sept 2009) I was visiting home and ended up visiting a highschool friend that attended Randall's memorial service. She told me about it and who was there and what it was like. She told me how brave Randall's parents were and how they had such great faith that God was taking care of their son and that they would see him again. I envy that unquivering sort of compassionate faith because really, I mostly feel like beating the shit out of or killing the bastards that did this horrible thing. Randall was a good man and there are too few of those in the world.
I don't care how young the killers were and what their lives were like. A person can choose you know? A person can choose no matter how horrific their childhood and life circumstances were. There is a choice. I'm tired of aching for people whose lives were taken from them way too soon. I'm tired of excuses and rationales and reasons why people do these horrible things. There are so many that truly suffer that don't do the same awful things. So enough is enough. No more excuses. If you commit and adult crime, you get an adult consequence. PERIOD!
I'm sure the kids that took the life of my friend are alive and well and able to see their families. Maybe they are remorseful and maybe they're not, but they're alive. What about Randall whose memory remains alive only to those that knew and loved him? What about the path of Randall's life (had he lived) that will never be known because a couple of assholes chose to play god for a few moments, because they chose the easy way. The cruel way. The cowardly way.
It takes bravery to live one's life well and with integrity. Randall's life story begs me to ask if I'm living my life well? How do I conduct daily tasks, my business? What examples do I leave in the community? What examples do I leave for children in my community? I wonder all of these things... I cry often and I wonder...
