Let me paint a picture for you. There is a small town in Georgia where magnolia and oak trees line the streets in front of neatly kept houses. Where springtime has set in, causing an explosion of pink, purple, and white flowers. Where people drink sweet tea and wave to their neighbors whether they know them or not. Where young people call their elders ma'am and sir, and it is not taken as an insult. Where strangers wait a few minutes to hold the door open for you, because it's the nice thing to do. Where the ocean breeze feels cool against your skin on a warm spring day. Where Terry and I chose to live and settle and raise our family. Where I felt safe, until Thursday.
Thursday morning started out like a normal day. It was a cool morning; cool enough to require Terry to go outside early to start his car and let it warm up. When he came back inside, he looked concerned. There was something strange in the front yard. I followed him back outside to see what it was. Low and behold, it was our mailbox. Someone had completely run it over, smashing it into pieces. "Great," I thought, "Another thing to add to my to do list."
For some reason our smashed mailbox made me feel uneasy. I was already feeling uneasy that morning, as I'd decided to take Brady to a MOPS group for the first time. MOPS is different from the other groups Brady and I attend. With MOPS, you leave your child in the church nursery and hang out with the other moms in a different part of the church. I don't leave Brady with people, with anyone really. My husband affectionately refers to me as a helicopter mom. The thought terrified me, but everyone is always telling me I have to get over my fears. "It's good for him," they say.
I left the house earlier than I had planned, so I could drive through Starbucks and get a cup of coffee. As I left Starbucks and headed downtown, the uneasy feeling overwhelmed me. I wanted to turn around and head to Lowe's to buy a new mailbox. "I should use this time more wisely," I thought. I pushed those thoughts out of my mind, telling myself that going to MOPS was a good thing. Brady needed to meet other kids and I needed to meet other moms. As I got closer, I called my friend to tell her she'd be proud of me for taking Brady to the group. I also thought the phone call would distract me and calm me down. It did distract me. My friend was crying, sobbing actually. I struggled to understand her words. I parked on the street right in front of the church, sat in the car sipping my coffee, and tried to console my friend.
Brady has never been a fan of his car seat; he'd rather be running around. Halfway through my conversation, I realized I wasn't going to be able to sit in the car and talk to my friend. I knew I couldn't hang up, so I was going to have to take Brady out of the car and let him roam around. It was a little after 9:00 am, and MOPS didn't start until 9:30. While talking to my friend, I took Brady out of his car seat, grabbed my purse and his diaper bag, and set them all down on the sidewalk. I had my back to the church, a phone up to my ear, and my eyes on my sweet baby running between two magnolia trees. I was distracted.
A little after 9:15 am, one block behind where I stood watching Brady play, two evil, cowardly teenage boys attempted to rob a woman pushing her one-year-old baby in a stroller. When she told them she had no money, the older of the two boys shot her in both the ear and leg. As if that wasn't bad enough, he pushed her out of the way, walked around the stroller, and shot her sleeping baby in the head. Her baby died right there on the sidewalk.
One block behind me. One block from where my angel ran playing between two trees. One block from where my Coach purse and Vera Bradley diaper bag sat on the sidewalk unattended. One block from where a distracted mother was on the phone, making her the perfect target. I never heard the gunshots, I was distracted. I heard the sirens. "I must be near a fire station," I thought. Had they walked one block further, they would have come into contact with me. I never would've seen them coming. My life never would've been the same. I didn't know anything was wrong until I saw uniformed officers walking up and down the street with shotguns. "Strange," I thought as I hung up the phone and walked into the church.
Although I don't consider myself to be weepy or dramatic, I am taking this very hard. You have to understand, I am a trained law enforcement officer. My husband is a trained law enforcement officer who trains other law enforcement officers for a living. I know better than to be distracted like that. I knew I was going into downtown Brunswick. I knew it had a reputation for being a little unsafe. I was uneasy as I drove downtown, but I didn't listen to my instincts. "It's 9:00 in the morning, I'm going to a church, it's good socialization for Brady." Those were all of the excuses running through my brain. I'd become complacent because I live in a small town. This isn't LA or DC, two places I've lived in the past. This is Brunswick, Georgia -- it's safe. Sadly, it turns out, nowhere is safe anymore.
This story is not about me. It is about the woman who so tragically lost her child. A woman who was running a simple errand on a beautiful spring morning with her son. A woman who's past may be checkered, but who's future will never be the same. Cherish every moment with your children and your family. In a split second, they could be gone forever.
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