Death of Innocence : The Story of the Hate Crime That Changed America (9781588363244) Read Online Free Page B
Author: Jesse Rev (FRW) Christopher; Jackson Mamie; Benson Till-Mobley
After all, his family was involved in our church and everyone saw him drive his mother and sister to and from church every Sunday. The whole community knew him and respected him.
Somehow, we wound up right in front of my house and then he really came on strong. He tried to touch me. And I threatened to scream. Finally, he jerked back, and at that moment, I opened that car door and left it swinging as I ran up the steps of my house.
For some reason, Mama was not there, looking out the door like she always did when she waited for me to come home. In fact, she was nowhereto be seen. I finally found her way in the back of the house just as calm as could be, I guess because she trusted this young man so much. I rushed to tell her this story about the fine, young trustworthy church boy and asked her what she planned to do.
She looked at me for a long moment. “I’m going to pray on it.”
I’m not sure how her prayers were answered. That was the last time it ever came up.
There was a lesson in these experiences. I realized that, sometimes, you can suffer the greatest harm at the hands of the people you trust the most. Unfortunately, that would be a lesson I would come back to later in life. But I shouldn’t have had to learn it in this way. I was caught off guard because of my mother’s failure to open my eyes to so many possibilities in life. She taught me to always see the best in people, and never seemed to think it was important that I should also be prepared for the worst. Just in case. My mother was good at a lot of things. She was the best there was. I can’t help but wonder, though, how much different my life would have been had I known all the things children need to know as they grow to become adults, all the things a mother should share to make sure a child can make it in a world where there may be no mother around to take care of things. I decided that I could not let Emmett face that world unprepared. It was my obligation as a mother, as his mother, to make sure he would have the survival skills that I had lacked. But there was something else, something very compelling about my start with Emmett and all the problems we had to overcome in those early days—problems that seemed to be all my fault.
Something happens when a child faces a life-and-death situation, as Emmett did. It leaves an indelible mark on the mother. Somewhere deep inside I knew that everything I did had consequences in the life of my child. And I had to make sure that I always did the right thing, the best thing, for him. I knew that each moment was a blessing and that each moment was to be nurtured and protected, as was my son. It would become such a stressful balancing act, to do enough without doing too much. To protect my child without stifling him, snuffing out his independence and his sense of adventure, the very things that would make him such a special little boy.
CHAPTER 2
T here had been so many complications during those first few weeks. The doctors had told me Emmett would probably be disabled for life, and that he should be institutionalized. I was not about to accept that. Even so, Emmett and I wound up going back and forth, in and out of the hospital so much that it was a month after his birth before we finally settled in at home together. And I was so happy then. He was the most precious thing I had ever had in my life. Better than all the little dolls my mother had given me with their painted-on hair. Now I had a
living
doll. His skin and hair color were finally reaching their natural brown and his eyes had gone from blue to hazel brown. That was a good thing, since his appearance had been causing quite a stir in our close-knit little community in Argo. Oh, my, the neighborhood gossip. And just because Emmett looked so, well, different at first. Most people had bet on the milkman, a white man, just because he had always been so nice to me—nice enough to give me a bottle of chocolate milk every now and then. The iceman
Somehow, we wound up right in front of my house and then he really came on strong. He tried to touch me. And I threatened to scream. Finally, he jerked back, and at that moment, I opened that car door and left it swinging as I ran up the steps of my house.
For some reason, Mama was not there, looking out the door like she always did when she waited for me to come home. In fact, she was nowhereto be seen. I finally found her way in the back of the house just as calm as could be, I guess because she trusted this young man so much. I rushed to tell her this story about the fine, young trustworthy church boy and asked her what she planned to do.
She looked at me for a long moment. “I’m going to pray on it.”
I’m not sure how her prayers were answered. That was the last time it ever came up.
There was a lesson in these experiences. I realized that, sometimes, you can suffer the greatest harm at the hands of the people you trust the most. Unfortunately, that would be a lesson I would come back to later in life. But I shouldn’t have had to learn it in this way. I was caught off guard because of my mother’s failure to open my eyes to so many possibilities in life. She taught me to always see the best in people, and never seemed to think it was important that I should also be prepared for the worst. Just in case. My mother was good at a lot of things. She was the best there was. I can’t help but wonder, though, how much different my life would have been had I known all the things children need to know as they grow to become adults, all the things a mother should share to make sure a child can make it in a world where there may be no mother around to take care of things. I decided that I could not let Emmett face that world unprepared. It was my obligation as a mother, as his mother, to make sure he would have the survival skills that I had lacked. But there was something else, something very compelling about my start with Emmett and all the problems we had to overcome in those early days—problems that seemed to be all my fault.
Something happens when a child faces a life-and-death situation, as Emmett did. It leaves an indelible mark on the mother. Somewhere deep inside I knew that everything I did had consequences in the life of my child. And I had to make sure that I always did the right thing, the best thing, for him. I knew that each moment was a blessing and that each moment was to be nurtured and protected, as was my son. It would become such a stressful balancing act, to do enough without doing too much. To protect my child without stifling him, snuffing out his independence and his sense of adventure, the very things that would make him such a special little boy.
CHAPTER 2
T here had been so many complications during those first few weeks. The doctors had told me Emmett would probably be disabled for life, and that he should be institutionalized. I was not about to accept that. Even so, Emmett and I wound up going back and forth, in and out of the hospital so much that it was a month after his birth before we finally settled in at home together. And I was so happy then. He was the most precious thing I had ever had in my life. Better than all the little dolls my mother had given me with their painted-on hair. Now I had a
living
doll. His skin and hair color were finally reaching their natural brown and his eyes had gone from blue to hazel brown. That was a good thing, since his appearance had been causing quite a stir in our close-knit little community in Argo. Oh, my, the neighborhood gossip. And just because Emmett looked so, well, different at first. Most people had bet on the milkman, a white man, just because he had always been so nice to me—nice enough to give me a bottle of chocolate milk every now and then. The iceman
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