In My Back Yard

Theme song: Black Boys on Mopeds

Friends, I am p*ssed -- it's for a variety of reasons but the most urgent one, NOW, is that it happened again.

This time, though, it was in my back yard. That's right -- here in the Mission, home of fine dining and late night drinking binges.

It wasn't police brutality, no.

It was one child stabbing another child in the heart -- apparently over a social media dispute -- and leaving him to bleed to death as he transferred from one trauma unit to another.

You can read the public details, here, but suffice it to say Rashwan Williams was a week into his freshman year at a top-quality local high school. He had a 4.0 GPA, a love of sports, three siblings, and a family who will miss him forever.

Okay. Maybe I'm not p*ssed. Maybe I'm devastated, simple and plain.

Maybe I want to know why it comes to this, over and over and over again. Another bright and beautiful boy disappeared by a confluence of circumstances that cannot be explained because they just don't make sense and if they did make sense they'd still be wrong.

Multiple lives ruined or compromised by someone with a well-aimed knife.

You know what? I dropped my kids off at their school today and I was happy to do it because, frankly, this was a long summer for a single working mom and I wanted to run the rat race in peace and quiet. I told my older boy, "You walk home and you be back by 4 pm. You're either at the school or you're at home, alright? And watch your brother. Make sure he's okay."

I walk away thinking, "Did he understand me? Does he realize how important this is?" The answer is, of course not.

My son has no idea what's at stake. He doesn't know why I sound sharp when I say be careful. He can have absolutely no idea what was going through Rashawn's mother's mind and heart when she scooped him up and took him to St. Luke's. He can have no idea how she hoped and prayed nor any idea of the icy shock and disbelief that spread through her flesh and bones when her baby, her child, her man child, was pronounced dead.

So I trust my children to the big, wide world. I have no choice.

I already don't feel good when I find out that Rashawn was holding his little brother's hand when he was stabbed in an apparently premeditated act.

I feel less good when I find out that rumor has it he was killed over a social media dispute.

In case you didn't know, there is nothing that can happen on social media worth killing someone for. I know because, as an online marketer, I work with social media every day.

A dear friend of our family's son started his freshman year at the same school, just last week -- full of hopes and dreams just as was Rashawn. He planned to go to Harvard.

I was already planning my son's visit to the school, as he's getting ready for high school this year.

He's excited about the school because his friend goes there and had a really great first week. Now the news is everywhere, the school is in mourning. My son will still visit, he may even end up there -- after all, it's known to be an excellent school. In any case, the death had little, if anything, to do with the school itself.

This one is just too close for comfort, yes. I don't know how many other people's sons I am not connected to were stabbed last night, in San Francisco, in California, in the US, in North America. Or the daughters, the guns, the hit and runs.

Here's what I do know: Try as I might and I do, I don't get to decide whether my children live or die.

And that I am oh so sorry for this tragic loss.

Rest in Peace