I had a child once who moved to my small city from Detroit. I asked him what he liked best about his new home. He said he got to sleep in a bed, not the bathtub. In Detroit his mother put him and his sisters to bed in the bathtub, the better to protect them from stray bullets which periodically crashed into their ground floor flat.
She had also put plywood over the windows.
There were no night lights as lights attract attention.
He told me he no longer worried about his mother and sisters.
He played chess very well.
What a sad way for a child to have to grow up. It must have been such a relief for his whole family when they moved.
ReplyDeleteKids shouldn't have to go through that. Not in Detroit, Gaza, Islamabad, Balochistan, not anywhere.
ReplyDeleteRei and Mitch, I am not sure how she managed to get out of Detroit. Most people who live there are trapped there. But she did it and was a very strong woman. I only knew the kid a few months before he went on to our middle school.
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, not in Detroit, Gaza, Islamabad, Balochistan, not anywhere.
ReplyDeletethat's tragic
ReplyDeleteThis is why I cling to a vision of Disarmament.
ReplyDeleteYes, tragic. I don't know how we can disarm this country. The guns are everywhere. I feel like it is sweeping back the sea.
ReplyDeleteI hope this child and his siblings have all had good safe lives free from the fear of being shot down. I'm not sure where that place is in the US, that is. I wonder how many people think about something horrible happening when they're shopping at the mall or enjoying a film that has just come to their town. I try not to when I go out there, but it's always in the back of my mind. Call me paranoid if you like. I abhor violence.
ReplyDeleteUgh, no one should have to live like that. Guns shouldn't be in the general populace, if you ask me. I know we just had a month here where people could turn in their illegal guns (and knives) without retribution of any kind to the police (some guns have become illegal due to law changes that weren't before) and they wrote in the newspaper it was a massive success. Apparently people turned over a lot of old guns and rifles. :)
ReplyDeleteWhoops, that was me! Wrong sign name there. ;)
DeleteWe have gun exchanges here too. The problem is that you can buy guns so easily that it is like trying to empty the ocean with a child's bucket.
ReplyDeleteWhenever there is shootings in our cities the media always interviews the neighbors. They voice their concern for their children. It's tragic that innocent, peace abiding citizens are subject to this fear every day.
ReplyDeleteYes, indeed it is. But the gun lobby is very strong.
DeleteI'm just blown away by the image of children sleeping in the bath to keep safe from guns. I just can't get my head around such a picture. It's the sort of thing you might expect if the children came from a war-torn country.
ReplyDelete