A Dream Differed

Dear Dreamers,
It's currently 6am as I sit here replaying Christina Aguilera's Lift Me Up, I can't help but reminisce on an incident that happened a little over a week ago. A boy I went to high school with was gunned down right in front of my house. Did I know him? No, not personally. Ask me any questions about him, and I couldn't tell you anything more than his name. Even then, I can't picture his face half the time. I knew of him rather than who he was. All I can tell you was the last moments. Hearing two gunshots ring as prominent as the lunch bell. It was early, or late to many of us 12am. What they were arguing over was only speculated. A 20 year old black (probably gang affiliated)male gunned down on the street of Chicago would be the next news headline. We ran to the window, hoping not to be seen for fear of what would be our fate. A group of people fled from the lifeless body that had red fluids rushing into the gutter. Is that how we expect to die? In someone's gutter, away from any family and friends...alone with no one to hear your cries for help except onlookers from a distance. He was shot once in the back and once in the head. Two minutes later, the police pulled up and put police tape around my house and those surrounding it. I was then interrogated at 3am about what happened, not knowing that already an hour ago, the shooting was publicized on FaceBook. The boy who shot him, was only 15. Neither of these boys had a chance to live...One whose life was taken viciously and undermining what his future held, the other a teenager still in highschool who made the biggest mistake of his life and now is a fugitive who either has to hide in solitary afraid to be captured or hide behind bars, afraid to face his reflection and the very epitome of what he has become. It just hit me, this isn't what we're meant to be, not only as a gender or race, but as human beings. We were set on this earth for a purpose, and whether or not we share the same religious values, we know that we are meant for better things than THIS?!?!


You can only wonder, what was his mother's dreams for her son while she buries him. As I put on my facebook, no parent should have to outlive their child. What was the purpose God had in store for him (Jeremiah 29:11)? One can only think of the pictures that were magnetized to his refrigerator growing up with aspirations to be a fireman, lawyer, doctor, etc...With two lone gunshots, two dreams were differed and silenced for eternity. Life isn't promised nor guaranteed. Live every day as if it were your last or your dreams may disappear as well...maybe not with something as harsh as death but even more so, life.

"Death is not the greatest loss in life.  The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live."

Until next time,

Sweet Dreams....

-Breezy