All the Difference in the World

Saturday night, we celebrated my son’s 18th birthday. We started late, because he had a dance event that afternoon. We almost skipped the idea of a party that night, but since it was Saturday, we figured we could run late. No one needed to worry about getting up early the next morning.

So Saturday afternoon, we were getting ready, cleaning up the house, fixing a fruit tray, putting out a couple of bowls of chips and ice and drinks. … a friend would be bringing cake and ice cream …The TV was on in the living room, running non-stop commentary on the George Zimmerman trial, which my Mom had been following all week. The jury was still out. We didn’t need to hear that while getting ready for a birthday party, I insisted. The TV was turned off. Good.

The party was fun. There’s something special about finally being able to celebrate your kid’s 18th birthday. All the doubts and worries you had about whether or not they would make it to legal adulthood – you can finally lay those to rest . Yes. You made it. Your kid just crossed that official finish line of childhood, and now you can relax – your job is done. They’re on their way. That is one great reason to celebrate.

It wasn’t a big party. Just family and a few neighbors and friends from school and a street dance group that my son gets together with two or three times a month for competitions and performances. Probably the best part of the party was an impromptu demonstration by these guys, stepping and sliding and tutting and krumping and popping… We cleared the floor on the back porch to make just enough space for a stage. Most of our older friends and family had never seen this kind of dance up close – and they loved watching it.

Around 11:30, folks were heading home, but my son and a few of his friends were still up talking, sitting around the cake table, enjoying the easy going atmosphere of a weekend in mid-summer …

My Mom turned on the TV in the living room, out of habit, to watch the news. From the kitchen I heard it - the Trayvon Martin / George Zimmerman catchwords again - I rushed into the living room and asked my Mom – Please - turn that off - just until the party’s over. She could watch it her room. Of course. No problem. She didn’t realize we still had kids in the house.

A couple of my son’s friends already have their drivers license, and they were fine to drive home. Another friend had called his Dad to come pick him up, and another was planning to take MARTA. His Mom would meet him at the Decatur station, he said. But it was getting late. I worried the trains might not be running so late, and the kid might miss a connection. If my son were riding alone at night, I’d be worried. There’s nothing worse than thinking about a teenager stuck somewhere between here and there, in the middle of the city in the middle of the night, wondering how he’s going to get home. Granted, this kid could probably take care of himself. He’s an entrepreneurial type, kind of tall, and sturdy built. Still though – he’s a teenager, and Atlanta’s not the safest city.

I told him I could drive him to Decatur – Maybe he could call his Mom to let her know, so she wouldn’t worry. He called. His Mom wanted to know which roads I would be taking to get to get to Decatur, and suggested she could meet us along the way, so I wouldn’t have to drive so far. We decided to meet at the Publix on the corner of Clairmont and North Decatur Road

We made sure our other friends got safely to their cars that were parked up the street, before we headed out. (Yes, I am overprotective, but we have had a couple of random shooting deaths just three doors up from us.)

On our drive to the Publix store, my son and his friend talked about upcoming dance events, routines they had seen in competitions, and whether the stage names of some of the different dancers fit their styles or not. … I don’t know why I thought the Publix would still be open at that time of night –I guess I was thinking the Mom wanted to meet us somewhere well lit where there would be some other people around, just in case one of us had to wait for the other … There’s safety in numbers and in light.

When we got there, though, the store was dark, (it was past midnight), but there was a car with its headlights beaming in the middle of the nearly empty parking lot. That’s exactly what I would do if I were waiting for a stranger to drop off my kid in a parking lot, too.

“Bet that’s your Mom,” I said to my son’s friend.

“Yeah – in the Taurus,” he confirmed. Same model we drove until ours broke down beyond repair a few years ago, I was thinking, as I pulled up next to her, and rolled down the window on our passenger side so she could see us.

“Hi Andrew’s Mom,” I said jokingly. “I’m Max’s Mom.” She remembered me – or at least our curiously decaled car - a bright red Kia Soul "Hamstar" - from a dance gathering this kids had one night this past winter in a parking lot of a deserted strip mall up in Gwinnett. The kids ended up using the car's radio speakers to amplify their dance music.

Our sons stayed in my car, listening to us Moms chat. 

Turns out we had a lot in common. Both of us had a teenage boy - who was the "only child" in the family, and totally into street dancing. And we were both the kind of overprotective Moms who were willing to drive out past midnight to make sure our sons got home okay.

Andrew’s Mom had sent him off with a word of warning earlier that night. “When I saw where you live, I told Drew – now remember – you have to come home tonight,” she said. “You can’t just stay there. That’s a nice neighborhood.”

I laughed and said he was welcome to stay with us anytime. If I had known she was dropping him off at the party, I would have invited her to stay too. I’d just assumed he’d taken MARTA.

After five or ten minutes of chatting from our respective driver's seats, I think we all felt good about getting together for another dance event soon, as we each headed home in our own directions.

When Max and I got back to the house, I heard the TV on in my Mom’s room, and the key words – Trayvon Martin … “Oh yeah – Mom’s watching the trial coverage. The jury's deliberating today …”

“No. It’s over,’ Max said.

“What?”

“It’s already over. They said he's not guilty.”

Oh ..... I turned on the TV, and the reality of what had happened beyond our small party started to sink in. George Zimmerman had been found not guilty in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin.

I don’t know the details of this case. I didn’t watch the trial. But the facts are –Trayvon Martin, a seventeen-year-old kid was walking home at night, and a neighborhood watchman, armed with a gun, thought the kid looked suspicious, called 911, started following him, and within minutes, had shot him dead. A kid was walking home. He wasn’t doing anything wrong. He was unarmed. He was black.

To pretend race doesn’t matter is a terrible lie. It does.

Watching the news of what happened to Trayvon … I knew how fearful Andrew’s Mom had a right to be that night, worrying about her son, a black teenager who looks as grown as a man, who would be walking through a predominantly white neighborhood late at night, on his way to catch a train to go home.

There is a difference in how kids are viewed from a distance. It’s the difference between black and white. It can mean the difference between life and death.

The difference is – Saturday night, I celebrated my son’s 18th birthday. Trayvon Martin’s mother never will celebrate Tray's.

These past few days, I can’t stop thinking of how something so wrong can be made right. …. Death can never be undone. A shot can never be unfired. Trayvon Martin will never laugh again, or get a hug from his mom, or look forward to getting together and just doing something fun with friends his age, like my son, like Ian, like Cameron, like Tony, like Andrew. Trayvon Martin will never grow up to be a man … and all the hopes and dreams his family had for their son will never be realized. Their child should never have been killed. That is so obvious it’s horrific. But even worse, the way this case played out in the courts, and on the news, there seems to be no recognition of the horror and guilt of this act. I don’t blame the jury, and I don’t know whether or not to blame the prosecutors, or law enforcement officials, or the legislators who wrote bad laws, the lawmakers bought off by gun manufacturers, or a media that just skirts the surface of sensational issues to sell ads instead of covering the real corruption in our cities and our nation.

I’ve been trying to get my head around this all week … and I all I can think to do – is to do something good - Anything good. Be with a friend. Offer a ride. Help out with a good campaign. Pay attention. Love people while we can. Try to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. Do what we can to make things right for the kids coming up. Count our blessings. Celebrate them. Share them with others. Dance.

In the end, what is good will not just be in our laws and in our court, but in our hearts, and with our hands, and in our eyes, as we regard each other, and every child, as our own.

And for you street dance enthusiasts - here's a picture of Max's group Epic Collaboratoin (EC) practicing in a parking lot. http://youtu.be/EldLxNj5unM