While this has nothing to do with anything I normally write about, I feel compelled to voice it. Some of you may have heard that my stepson David was shot while grocery shopping August 11th. The young girl (19) who did it was mentally deranged and wounded two other men as well. Apparently she had it in for men that day. It was a sad case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Nothing more and nothing less can be read into it. I’m sure we’ll never learn all the particulars but it would not shed any new light on what ensued. Suffice it to say that things happen- and invariably to those who do not deserve it or earn it.

David was severely wounded and lost a kidney. The bullet traversed his arm and chest, hitting most major organs including his liver and lungs. He had survived that and was well on his way to a recovery. A mass in the lower lung indicated one last surgery was needed as it appeared there was something amiss. While preparing him for surgery, the nurse gave him a shot of Vitamin K to reverse the effects of Heparin. He immediately went into anaphylactic shock and flatlined. Unfortunately, they didn’t ensure his airway was open and it appears that he went without oxygen for some time during the resuscitation efforts.

David never regained consciousness and slowly slipped away from us over the last week. After a meeting with doctors yesterday morning, it was decided to take him off the ventilator to see if he could survive. His EEGs indicated there was very little meaningful brain activity. After a short (18 hour) battle, he succumbed this morning at 0815. He will be sorely missed. I will never be able to express that in written words. I don’t think it’s possible to do so.

David suffered a form of Phenylketonuria called PKU disease and was developmentally disabled from birth. His mother, my ex-wife, passed suddenly in 2001 and we moved him up here to be near his remaining family. He was happy and had recently purchased a home near the grocery store for convenience’ sake. He didn’t drive. He had a job to occupy him and was well on his way to settling in to a peaceful, rural life.

David was born 45 days before I returned from Southeast Asia. He and his mother came into my life in late 1973, six months after the Air Force and I parted company. He and I shared the same birthday and, as I joked recently, we both also shared the fact that he’d been shot now, too. In spite of our divorce, David was always a part of my life just as my daughter was. You don’t buy Christmas gifts for one child and ignore the other simply because he did not issue from your own loins. Children do not understand that concept, nor should they be expected to.  In the absence of his biological father, I was his “dad”. As a child, David was no different than his peers. He liked Tarzan, Batman, horses, and all the other things children his age thrived on. When he was 10 or 11, he fell from a barn roof and severely injured his left arm. Due to gangrene, the injury was extensive and permanent. It never slowed him down. The glass was always half-full and he insured that it stayed that way. I never heard him complain of his lot in life. He even learned to play a guitar in spite of this handicap.

David turned forty this year with great expectations of many more years. He is now off to a new adventure in another plane of existence. Some have voiced anger over the fact that this young lady had access to a gun. She didn’t, per se. She absconded with it from her grandparents’ home that day unbeknownst to them. I’m sure they were not anticipating this but they should have. They will journey through their own private hell for that and I feel their confusion and pain. I feel they were irresponsible for having the gun accessible but that won’t bring David back. As we have seen in the news frequently, reaching for a gun seems to be a way to get your fifteen minutes of Andy Warhol fame. We do not seem to be teaching our children well in this important respect. Quite the contrary. By denigrating guns and their mere existence, we ostracize an object rather than a philosophy. This transfers blame to an inanimate item and somehow absolves the miscreant because he or she was somehow “abused” as a youngster. Using this perceived abuse as a yardstick,  by rights each and every one of us should be irreparably damaged.

January 14th, 2014- Still there.

This is not about guns. It is, at best, about mental illness and supervising those who suffer from it. I certainly don’t blame the manufacturer of the revolver. The bullet is not the culprit either. The problem developed a score or more years ago when the legislators in my state opted to close mental health facilities and employ the sink or swim philosophy. Only the most severely afflicted were committed.  The monies were appropriated for other , more politically correct and “necessary” endeavours leaving the mentally disabled to fend for themselves. Absent a proven danger to others, they were set free in droves. This put tremendous pressure on families to take care of their own. The mother of this young woman petitioned our Governor in a personal letter and warned of this eventuality over a year ago. Sadly, her worst fears came true August 11th. Staying home to supervise her adult daughter was not an option. She had to put food on the table and keep the lights on. Nevertheless, she inadvertently enabled her daughter by handing her the car keys.  Nothing about this crime was simple or straightforward. It rarely is.

One out of the six into the floor

The detectives investigating this case were apprised of David’s almost certain demise yesterday and immediately began their plans to charge her with his death. They congregated at the hospital for several hours but eventually departed. They will return today with the Medical Examiner and perform an autopsy.  What a horrific waste of life and potential for all concerned. What is paramount in all this and all the more reprehensible is the practice of robbing Peter to pay for Paul’s social programs. The cause du jour varies from day to day but the consequences of legislators’ actions have come home to roost in our small, rural community and I am not happy. No political party is to blame. It is a product of an ever-expanding government attempting to cast its net wide and encompass all ills. Some problems such as mental illness are perennial and cannot be absorbed by families. They are not equipped to handle it. That fact was recognized over a century ago and sadly is now on the wane as vocal lobbyists’ pet social needs burden the system. Medications are no panacea for schizophrenia if the patient fails to take them. You certainly can’t blame the patient or their family either.  That’s why we invested our tax dollars in psychiatric hospitals. Valium and Xanax cannot supplant brick and mortar where the safety of society is concerned.

As this post (I hate the term blog) is read by many of my friends in our community, I wish to thank all of you for your extremely wonderful gift of the benefit held for David last Saturday at the Civic Center. Your generosity was boundless and your coming together in our time of trouble was deeply appreciated.  I only wish that this had turned out for the better. We as a family could not ask for a better community of caring neighbors.  Total strangers we have never met were there to offer their condolences and help. Thank you all  for your efforts. Our wounds will heal in time and David will always be in our thoughts. I pray his death will not be in vain. This should be a wake up call to those who continue to dismember the wisely contemplated and carefully crafted social net that was designed to catch and help the mentally challenged.