Death Across The Street

A line of fire trucks and police cars can feel like “something happening to someone else” until it’s parked on your own street; a stunned neighborhood, and a question that wouldn’t let go: what happened across the street, less than fifty yards from our ordinary lives?

I share the story of a little boy who suffered in ways no child should, behind a house that looked like any other from the outside. As the details surface, we sit with the heartbreak of not knowing his name, the heaviness of realizing we couldn’t see what was hidden, and the complicated truth that the person who caused his death was also a child living in pain. It’s a meditation on grief, child loss, trauma, and the “why” questions that rise up when meaning feels impossible.

Where was God in this? There are no easy answers, but the comfort of believing Jesus accompanies suffering, and acknowledging how inadequate  words can be when love has been so visibly absent. 

If you’re searching for a grief podcast that’s honest, spiritual, and grounded, listen and take what you need for wherever you are in your grieving process. Subscribe, share this with someone who needs a place to land, and leave a review so more grieving listeners can find this circle of support.

ATTEND MY SUMMER WORKSHOP ON "SOULFUL LISTENING" THROUGH THE MARKEY CENTER AT SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY VIA ZOOM.

https://events.scu.edu/markey-center/event/359741-soulful-listening-workshops-on-the-ministry-of

Art:  https://www.etsy.com/shop/vasonaArts?ref=seller-platform-mcnav
and  https://fineartamerica.com/profiles/candee-lucas

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0F2SFH4Z6

Music and sound effects today by:   via Pixabay

Transcript

Speaker 0:41

Welcome to Solace, Soul + Grief.

On Our Street

What Happened

Where Was God In This

The Guilt Of Not Knowing

Marking A Life

Closing Thoughts And Gentle Reminders

Candee 0:44

I'm glad you're here. My name is Candee Lucas. I'm a Jesuit trained spiritual director and chaplain. We don't really have an instruction book about grief or how to mourn or how to live with these devastating losses. I recorded this as a podcast library for people who are in any stage of grief. Many subjects will not be relevant to where people are, but they might be useful later. So please check in from time to time to see if there's something new that might assist you. Remember, you're always welcome in this circle of healing, love, and support. There was a death across the street. I came home one day, and my little road was filled with fire trucks and police cars and ambulances, and their presence was overwhelming and disturbing. A police officer came to our door that day and asked us if we'd seen anything strange in the neighborhood. And I said no, and Jason said no, he hadn't seen anything. And then I asked the police officer for some reason if we were safe in this neighborhood now. And he said yes. He was right for us, but he was wrong for someone else. And it was over the next few days that we found out that there had been a death across the street, probably less than fifty yards from where we eat dinner, wash clothes, do all the ordinary mundane things that people do in their lives. Less than fifty yards from where we do our Monday things, a little boy was dying. We didn't know; we couldn't know. There was no black cloud hanging over the house or anything unusual about the house at all from the outside. It just looks like a house, any other house. From the inside it must have looked very different for a little boy. Inside that house he lived a very tiny life. Tiny because he was too young to go to school or daycare or have much impact in the world around him. I think I might have seen him in a stroller once or twice, but that all might be my imagination now. Inside that house, that little boy was experiencing the darkest place in life. My Christian faith tells me that Jesus was with him, suffering with him and embracing him all along the way, for it seems no one else was. All the words we want to bring forth when something like this happens seem inadequate. They seem inadequate because they are inadequate. They are even inadequate to a tiny small life, lived in great darkness and suffering and pain, seemingly alone, seemingly forgotten. Until that one day the police finally came, and the fire truck came, and the ambulance came, and they worked over his little body until they took him away in their arms because he was too small for the gurney. They took him away to the hospital to try desperately to save his life. And they lost that battle two days later. The person who caused this little boy's death was another boy. An older boy, yes, but another boy living in darkness and pain and suffering, whose only way of expressing himself and the depth of his own pain, was to visit pain on the body of someone younger, more delicate, less able to defend himself. That boy was apprehended two days later and now sits in Juvenile Hall, where his life --for all practical purpose, unless there is a serious intervention by social services or some judge-- is over. And as I think about this death across the street, I have to ask, I have to ask over and over where was God in this? I know God was with and accompanied that little boy as he suffered, Jesus right by his side, cradling even though he was probably unaware of that. But it gives me some comfort to know that Jesus was there. This is just a little boy who lived across the street. I don't know his name. I don't know if we'll ever know his name. I don't know the name of the boy that took his life; inch by inch, day by day, piece by piece. I cannot imagine the hell they both lived in. I only know that this is what the absence of love looks like from the outside. I am still stunned that it happened across the street from where we live in our little neighborhood. I always wonder if I could have known, if I would have, would I have intervened? I'm not so comfortable with the answer to that question because I cannot answer it. I'm not sure what I would have done. So I feel in a way that I let that little boy down. Why didn't I protect him? Some people later said they heard yelling from that house often. I don't remember that. Our houses sit very close together, so it's difficult to have complete privacy. Yet the death was hidden from us, hidden away in a manner most banal and ordinary. I grieve for that little boy because I don't know that anyone else will mourn him. I don't know if he will have a funeral, a burial, a memorial, biological parents grieving over him. I know that most hospitals have a program to bury people who have no one to claim their remains. And I know that periodically there is an organization that holds a funeral once a month or so for the unclaimed, the forgotten, the insignificant. I only share this story because I want to be more aware of what happens fifty yards from my house. Fifty yards from where I live and sleep and dream and record these podcasts. I have laid a cross in the front of the house. I don't know why. I was just thinking how people leave memorials and flowers and tributes alongside of the road where people have died in accidents. I know this is not an accident, but I wanted to somehow mark for the walking by, or for maybe the people in the house. I want a person walking by to recognize that that little boy is remembered and loved even in his absence, but loved nonetheless. I do not know the answer to the question of why he suffered or of why he died, but all of that is part of the fabric and part of the tapestry of our lives. Now that we experience so much death, we witness so much meaningless death. There was a death across the street. I don't know him, I didn't know him, but somehow I miss him and I see the hole left in the world he would have filled. That concludes another episode. Tune in every Friday morning for a new episode. You can find us on Apple Music, Amazon Music and Spotify. Remember to notice God in your lives. Be gentle to yourselves. Vaya con Dios.