Let's take a break from our regularly scheduled adorable photo-ops and inconsequential discussions about sleep patterns to talk about something that matters.
Like many people do this time of year, our family teamed up with a few other families to sponsor an underprivileged family for Christmas. There were drop off locations that we could go to deliver the gifts, but I really wanted to meet the family and make a personal drop. Since the other families are overseas (Eric's friends who are playing basketball), it fell to us. I had visions of stopping by, seeing the smiling faces of children as the festive gifts were brought in, and hopefully leaving with a warm fuzzy feeling of Christmas.
It didn't happen that way.
The family we sponsored is a single mom with four children. I called the mom last week to coordinate a drop-off. Eric had early morning practice today so he was able to come home early. This was a rough part of town, so I knew this was something we'd like to do during daylight hours.
When I called, the mom asked for a contact number in case anything changed and they wouldn't be home. "I'm at the hospital, so can you just text me?" she asked. Not wanting to be nosy, I just said sure.
We pulled up to her house around 4:30, and she had texted me a few minutes before that she was leaving the hospital, so we waited, Brady watching the neighbor boys playing basketball in the street, a hoop right in front of their house. I thought, hoped, that one of those carefree boys was one of our sponsored children.
It wasn't. Maybe on a normal day, it would have been, but today, two of our four sponsored children were in the hospital, suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. The mom was kind when she greeted us, and I (stupidly) explained that we were delivering three bikes in the off-chance there was a way to hide them from the kids. It became clear that there was no hiding the bikes because 1) who cares and 2) the kids weren't home. Last Tuesday, her 16-year-old son was shot three times, while her 14-year-old was shot 25 times. She explained this with a very straight face. "I'd really like to get out of Durham," she told me, the way I'd tell you that I'd really like to Jackson to sleep through the night.
A few days prior, her boys were witness to a murder in their neighborhood. She thinks they may have been targeted. It looks like an arrest was made today. This stuff doesn't happen in our world...except when it does. While I'm worrying about my kid sleeping through the night, this mom is worried about her son living through the night. I'm thinking about surprising her kids with the bikes, and she's worried that the neighbor kids will break into her house after seeing the bikes come in.
This tired mom will hold her baby a little closer tonight when he cries.
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