NoJoMo 20 – Bearer of Bad News

Because of my interest in staying informed in local news – I just got to be the person to inform my boy that someone he works with was murdered yesterday on his way home from work.

My parents were cops. They had to do this kind of thing. My dad more than my mom because he was a much higher rank. I remember the days he come home after something happened where he had to tell someone that a loved one had died. My dad always seemed broken..

I just walked into my kitchen where boy was cleaning up and stared at him for a moment. I quietly asked if he remembered the case I told him about yesterday, the possible shooting and murder of someone in town.

I told him that the police released the name – and that it was someone he worked with. I told him the name and what details I could remember.

He just stared at me and quietly asked the name again and said “Shit. He is one of the nicest people there…” He started asking questions, and I could only tell him the basics of what I had read and where to find information.

I read the part that stated where the young man had worked and my brain stopped. I read the name over and over thinking “Oh shit” – thinking about all the people who I know who work there. Before I finished reading the information I got up to tell my boy.

Boy went and watched the news report and read the same information I did. He came into my room and we talked and I went over what my father always told me about crimes, what my limited experience had taught me.

I walked into our kitchen, and just informed my boy that this young man he has known for years was violently murdered….This falls in the category of something I never thought I would have to do.

This is part of the reason I ultimately chose teaching over law enforcement. I don’t like this. Crime hit so close to home so many times as a child. My father trying so hard not to bring it home, the accidents and murders and the evils of the world. The death of friends in accidents and too many funerals through middle and high school of kids younger than me. The school shooting involving children I babysat – and their father being the first police officer on the scene. The murder of other officers my father worked with that I had known, who I looked up to.

I wanted that part of my life to be over.

But since I started teaching I have lost four students – all to driving accidents. I have comforted students as parents were dying of various diseases; cancer, leukemia, and unknown sudden deaths. It has fallen on my several times to inform the school of the death of someone – once for a student because I found out first, and other times as to why kids were not in school due to death in the family. Every time they were amazed that I knew what was going on.

It never gets better, being the barer of bad news.

All I can think is how can I help my boy, what can I do to help the people I know whom he works with. And there is little to nothing that I can do.

Death touches all lives at some point. I just wish that this did not happen to this young man. I keep thinking about his family and I wish there was something anyone could do to take away this pain.

I wish that no family ever had to face this pain.

And I know from too much experience that there is nothing that can be done, no way to ease the pain. Even answers as to why will never make it stop. Time will just dull it, but this will never go away.

I like living in my illusion of this world being a good place, but I just got pulled back to reality. Every life is connected, every life is important and has meaning…

And I never EVER want to be in the position again where I have to tell someone I care about that someone from their life was murdered.