the cry of a crackhead

As I looked at my phone my stomach sank. It was on silence and I had missed several calls, calls that came from one section of my city, repeat calls, calls from the police chaplaincy...I knew they could only mean one thing. As I hung up the phone, memories of the little boy on a bike, at camp, always with an ornery grin, in trouble a lot of the time. He had grown up, into a bigger boy, in a car, on the street still with and ornery grin, and in trouble a lot of the time. I drove over to the scene, and was escorted to where his mother stood, close to his body lying on the sidewalk. I heard her call my name, and began to weep. As I stood there holding her up, I remembered her daughter who had been brutally stabbed to death 7 years ago, her younger son who had died of a heart disease, and now she stood by her third dead child.  The rest of the scene was not unlike most murder scenes...yellow tape, blue/red lights, police and detectives scuffling around looking for evidence...muffled sobs of mother/grandmother/and baby mama. The young men saying little, but anger, fear and pain begin to melt into a silent rage...muted emotions hardening the already weary heart. At each corner the crowd begins to gather, whispering the same muted questions...Who did it? Where’s his mother? Where’s his brother...his kids. 

This night, as I walked back to my car, I stopped to talk to some friends. We too, whispered muted memories and fears of revenge as a beat up old car slowed, its driver wanting to speak. It was an old kid and her friend; both had succumbed to the addiction of crack. She asked what happened, and I told her who had been shot and killed. As I was finishing my sentence, both her and her friend let out a scream and began loudly sobbing. I could hear their weeping as the car slowly drove all the way down the street.

As I laid down that night, the sound of the two "crackheads" weeping would not leave. The piercing, un-muted, unmonitored, non calculated cry was actually appropriate. It mirrored the truth, an accurate response to a young son, brother, father, friend shot down in the middle of the street. It had no time to judge, reason or excuse...it simply escaped and shattered the muted pain beneath the surface of so many of us there that night.

Truthfully, I believe it echoed the heart of the Living God. The one who hears our cries, and knows the depth of pain that comes with living in a chaotic place, void of true love. The honesty of the cries that night, tore back the silence of God, the Lover of our souls, and pierced the darkness through the voice of broken, but beautifully loved humans.