I have been in the house alone most of the day with my dog Jinji. I exercised early and came back to watch the Whitney Houston funeral.
Whitney was not the only one buried today. Eighteen year old Ramarley Graham was also was buried in the bogey-down Bronx. Graham, an unarmed kid was chased to his home by plainclothes detectives and then shot to death in his bathroom in front of his grandmother and six year old brother. The police broke the door down and entered without a warrant. Video exists to show the detective’s version of the truth is not the truth. No one from Bloomberg’s Police Department has yet to be charged. You can read more here at an article I wrote some days ago over on the care2.com/causes website.
I was so caught up in the emotion of the service and what for me was a mother losing their child that I did not notice until late in the day that Whitney’s burial had overshadowed Ramarley’s burial. His mother was experiencing the same loss as Whitney’s mother. One life is not more important than another. No matter this teen’s crime and presently everyone seems to agree it is for purchasing marijuana, he did not deserve to die.
The melancholia of the day expressed itself as me feeling loss in my own family. All I wanted to do was be quiet. We need our families to heal, to feel connected. They are our sunshine.
Tell me did you spend any time in front of the old telly?
boomrwiz says
Hi Pat
Yes this feeling of loss applies to anyone’s loss. I realize perhaps it’s just because I have experienced “unconditional love” only as a mother and as a child and not in partnership that I went there with my feelings. What if those teens who are taking their lives knew they were important to the planet? This celebrity culture sometimes makes you lose track of what is important. I wonder what we could do to help change things. At the least we can keep talking about the need for change in order to help bring about an intervention by those capable of reaching those teens.
And hopefully the NYCP will do something substantial to change how officers treat people and especially young black men — not because they are more special — but because they are unofficially at war with each other.
Pat Durkin Wignall says
I spent the afternoon in tears watching the moving service for whitney houston on cnn. I loved all of it, including kevin costner’s remembrances of working with her, the music, clive davis’ words.
i only now can relate the two tragedies from your piece, patricia. you are absolutely right about all of it and the loss of a child. I hadn’t really followed Ramarley’s story, probably because of the barrage of whitney houston coverage. Another terrible and tragic loss. I’ll add another one in I just heard about. In Spring Lake Heights, there have been about 6 deaths by teen boys by suicide on the train tracks. This past Wednesday, after about a year or two hiatus, a 15 year old stood on the railroad tracks and not only took his own life but caused bewilderment of his parents, family and community. It’s all sad and I will have a quiet contemplative day today too.