This Week
I knew a few weeks ago that this would be the craziest week of the semester, between assignments for school, job-work, internship responsibilities, and the first Alliance for Anti-Racist Social Work Practitioners meeting on Friday (SGA group I'm running).
But I didn't think when I walked into my internship on Monday that it would be this bad. My task supervisor beckoned me into her office and without any frills told me that one of our clients had been shot and killed over the weekend. I couldn't believe. This young man had been walking, breathing, laughing, smiling, and planning for his future. Last Wednesday we had texted about him coming to see me to work on a new job application. He said he didn't feel well, but I caught up with him later in the hallway and he said he would come see me Monday.
He is dead. He couldn't come see me. He won't ever walk into his apartment building again. He won't come smilingly slopingly into my office, asking about jobs and quietly sitting next to me at the computers as we hunt down job applications. He won't see his friends again. He won't see his devastated family, or take care of his young daughter. He won't walk the streets and see another winter, spring, summer come to Baltimore. He is dead.
To say I am heartbroken feels trite, but I am. And my deep grief only increased more so when I stepped out of my supervisor's office and began to speak to the cluster of confused and upset residents. Some of them took it very, very hard. It triggered and retraumatized them. Finally, at the apartments, they are safe, and then - this happens. Out of the blue, one of their neighbors and friends is killed. No one has a clue why. Death is nothing new to them, but it still hurts every time.
The day was strange and beautiful in only the way a grief-filled day can be. In our haze of sadness, many residents and staff members gathered for a meeting. And then three of them requested that I run a relaxation group - the same three who had scoffed at attending last week. They all came, they got their friends to come, and we sat for almost two hours. In the beginning I played music and did deep breathing exercises and aromatherapy. Then the conversation started to happen. People shared about their feelings about this loss, and all of the others preceding it. Their fears, their grief, their trauma. It was real. It made me glad I was with them, glad that I could be a tiny part of witness to their suffering. I didn't speak much but I was grateful for the privilege of hearing their voices.
He wasn't just another black man shot on the streets. He had a life, and a family, and a future, and a past. And yet he was just another black man shot on the streets. He is, in the eyes of most of this city, just another statistic.
I am in the half-hopeful half-dark place of grief right now. I see a glimmer of light in the residents at the apartment, who are determined to come together over this and create community where they live. That's what heals grief. His loss is a devastation, now and always. It's unbearably sad to look into the face of it. And yet I hope. Community from loss. Light from heartbreak. What beautiful butterflies will emerge from the gaping hole of death?
But I didn't think when I walked into my internship on Monday that it would be this bad. My task supervisor beckoned me into her office and without any frills told me that one of our clients had been shot and killed over the weekend. I couldn't believe. This young man had been walking, breathing, laughing, smiling, and planning for his future. Last Wednesday we had texted about him coming to see me to work on a new job application. He said he didn't feel well, but I caught up with him later in the hallway and he said he would come see me Monday.
He is dead. He couldn't come see me. He won't ever walk into his apartment building again. He won't come smilingly slopingly into my office, asking about jobs and quietly sitting next to me at the computers as we hunt down job applications. He won't see his friends again. He won't see his devastated family, or take care of his young daughter. He won't walk the streets and see another winter, spring, summer come to Baltimore. He is dead.
To say I am heartbroken feels trite, but I am. And my deep grief only increased more so when I stepped out of my supervisor's office and began to speak to the cluster of confused and upset residents. Some of them took it very, very hard. It triggered and retraumatized them. Finally, at the apartments, they are safe, and then - this happens. Out of the blue, one of their neighbors and friends is killed. No one has a clue why. Death is nothing new to them, but it still hurts every time.
The day was strange and beautiful in only the way a grief-filled day can be. In our haze of sadness, many residents and staff members gathered for a meeting. And then three of them requested that I run a relaxation group - the same three who had scoffed at attending last week. They all came, they got their friends to come, and we sat for almost two hours. In the beginning I played music and did deep breathing exercises and aromatherapy. Then the conversation started to happen. People shared about their feelings about this loss, and all of the others preceding it. Their fears, their grief, their trauma. It was real. It made me glad I was with them, glad that I could be a tiny part of witness to their suffering. I didn't speak much but I was grateful for the privilege of hearing their voices.
He wasn't just another black man shot on the streets. He had a life, and a family, and a future, and a past. And yet he was just another black man shot on the streets. He is, in the eyes of most of this city, just another statistic.
I am in the half-hopeful half-dark place of grief right now. I see a glimmer of light in the residents at the apartment, who are determined to come together over this and create community where they live. That's what heals grief. His loss is a devastation, now and always. It's unbearably sad to look into the face of it. And yet I hope. Community from loss. Light from heartbreak. What beautiful butterflies will emerge from the gaping hole of death?
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