South Carolina and Joe

There are really no words that can truly express the tragedy that recently occurred in South Carolina at the hands of one young man.  Travesty.  Cold-blooded murder.  The chill that I feel down to my bones and the knot I have in my gut have not gone away.  While I grieve for those mercilessly slain, I also can't get Joe out of my mind.

As a public school teacher of 30+ years, most of those spent teaching those who marched to the beat of a different drummer, I'd seen it all.  I'd been cussed at, spat on, slugged, dodged a desk or two, been bitten, found myself knee-deep in the middle of a riot-you name it, I'd been there.  I stayed because I believed I made a difference.  I never gave up on the worst of the worst-in fact, when they let me, I'd put an arm around them and welcome them.

Then I met Joe.  He was about eleven when I met him.  I wasn't afraid, but I did feel immediately ill-at-ease. Later that week, I had a chance to review Joe's file.  I learned that his dad died drunk when he rolled his truck; that his mother was killed when he was an infant in a drug deal gone bad.  He'd gone through withdrawal as a baby.  He was currently in the custody of his paternal grandmother, an already overburdened woman ill-equipped to deal with him.  To the best of our ability and to the extent of our limited resources we tried to get help for Joe.  Medical, psychological, psychiatric, social services-you name it.  As is the way of many inner-city children, Joe was with us only for about two months.

I thought of Joe occasionally over the years, and when I did, I thought of him in terms I had never applied to another child:  "This boy is beyond repair."

One day about six years later, I read about Joe in the newspaper.  He had beaten his girlfriend until she was dead.

I don't know what the answers to children like Joe are.  I know there were clear signs that problems were there, and I know that many people and entities tried to address them.  And I know it wasn't enough.  What haunts me still is the tiny small seed that was planted in me by Joe-the fear that for some very, very few, perhaps there just isn't enough.