20 February 2009

Murder

It's happened twice now; me sitting, eating, working. Him yelling, cussing, killing. The first time was last month. He was sitting with his wife and 8 year old daughter. The little girl kept saying, "Dad, guess what happened at school today..." His response became predictable. "Nobody cares what happened at school. Stop talking and eat your dinner." Heartbreaking. It happened at McDonald's this morning. Different dad, four year old girl. Girl says, "Dad, I forgot to get my caramel dipping stuff for my apples." Dad pontificates, "Jesus Christ, you F---ING forget everything!" I sat in my seat, stunned. What do I do? Punch this guy in the neck...no, he could probably take me. I realized in that moment that I had just witnessed death. Murder is alive and well in the world and in the play area at McDonald's. I looked at this little one, curly hair, curious eyes. I saw her death before my eyes, slow, dull, blunt. I looked at the dad and wondered who first killed him, who was his murderer? And when did he go from killed to killer? Then I felt really heavy, stuck.

For all who are being killed, slowly.

For all who murder from their own pain.

Jesus Christ have mercy.

4 comments:

Emily said...

thanks for making me cry... i want to rescue these children.

Jonathan D. Golden said...

Jeff, sad but true.

Kris McDaniel said...

Wow, Jeff. So true. We have so much power, don't we. St. James was not kidding when he told us that life and death reside within our tongue. Thank you for the reminder.

Anonymous said...

Very, very true. I was just thinking about that today seeing as how every one of my child/teenage girl clients do not have a relationship with their father. And the "relationship" they do have is the fact they just sit on the couch, watch TV and have small talk.