It’s hard to find the words to write this story because it’s painful and joyful and hard and sad and hopeful all at the same time. So let me start at the beginning.

 

It was around 11 am Friday last week and my kids had gone up to the pool with their teacher for a short swim. They forgot the sunscreen and my son headed back to the house on his bike to pick it up so his little sister didn’t get a sunburn. I was headed to the lake in our community to sit and read by the water when he came into the house panting. I asked him if he was ok and he just stood there, staring at the books in the bookshelf. Wondering if he was hurt, I asked again if he was ok or if he hurt himself on the ride home, or if something happened. He hesitated. I told him I wanted to help but that I couldn’t if he wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. He looked up at me and started talking.

“Mommy, I was coming home to get a book for Aria and a white man drove by me and called me a nigger out of his window. I didn’t know what to do. I was scared he might try to do something to me so I rode home as fast as I could.” I could see he wasn’t sure how he felt or what to do. Then he said sadly, “Mommy, I thought we lived in a good neighborhood.” I knew then that some of my son’s innocence was lost that sunny spring morning. Some confidence and security in his world had been taken from him.

 

 

I started asking questions: What kind of car was he driving? Was he old or young? Where was he in the neighborhood when this happened? Was it the man who did this same thing last year when my kids were walking home from swim practice?

 

We sat and talked for a while. I reminded him that man did not know him, so what he said about him meant nothing. Anything he said was more about himself than my son, and I told him that. For a grown man to call a child a racial slur as he drove by, that man had to be coming from a place of ignorance, hatred, and cowardice. If my son had been with an adult, would this have happened? I doubt it. After I reassured him and made sure he had a sibling to accompany him back to the pool, I called my husband. He was irate. After we worked through the facts (there were few), we both had the same feelings of anger and helplessness. We couldn’t fix this for our son. We couldn’t take it away.

 

 

After talking to friends and family and working through the anger and frustration we felt, we decided that the next best step would be to write an open letter to the community on our neighborhood forum. My husband wrote it, I edited and made suggestions, and he posted it early the next morning. We’ve been in our large neighborhood for more than 13 years and we know a few families and most of our immediate neighbors, but we aren’t close to many of them. So we weren’t really sure what kind of response we’d get from this letter. Would there be silence? Token messages of support?

 

What happened next was truly moving. Immediately, strong messages of support came back in response to the letter. Most of them were from families we hadn’t met, expressing their outrage at our experience and their rejection of this kind of behavior in our community.  Then our close neighbors started to respond. The older man on the corner nearest to where the incident occurred walked up the street to our house and rang the doorbell. He stood on our front steps (we would have invited him in, but his wife is medically frail and we are in a pandemic) and expressed his horror that this happened to us. He then told the kids that if they ever were in the neighborhood and felt unsafe, they could always come to his door and he would protect them like his own children. I had tears in my eyes as we expressed our thanks to him.

 

Our next-door neighbors are originally from the Middle East, and the wife came to our door with a loaf of homemade bread and chocolate chip cookies. She told us a couple of stories of how her children were called names and told to stay away from the community pool a few years ago. They haven’t been back to the pool since. She was so encouraged that we shared our story on the neighborhood forum that she felt moved to share theirs as well. She saw some comments that expressed hope that our story was an isolated incident, and she wanted to help people know that it was not.

 

Our love gift of homemade bread…

 

When our across-the-street neighbor retired from his law practice, we were invited over for a garden retirement party. Ever since we’ve been friendly with them and catch up with our lives when we see each other while picking up the mail or walking the neighborhood. This is what they did for us:

 

 

This is the world in which we live. It’s like my dad told me: There are good people in the world, and there are bad people. There are people who would attack a child in the street. And there are people who would offer to comb their security camera footage to try to find the license plate of the driver who did this to my son. There are neighbors who bake bread and offer sanctuary and support and love. There are people who are willing to have conversations, even when they are hard or uncomfortable or require self-examination. It’s not a perfect world, but it can be improved because there are people who want to make it better. I am one of these people. So I am called to share, to love, to have the hard conversations. I am here to do what the Spirit has called me to do to make this world better, whether it’s in my neighborhood, in my work, in my church, or in my home.  So I’m listening and praying and following. It’s going to take some time in meditation with God for me to know what to do with all my emotions. So many of us are dealing with powerful emotions in this climate of racial inequity. But I am sure there is an answer for each of us. May we find ways to serve and love and grow in the midst of the calling we face in these days.

I love you!

 

How are you working with your emotions?  Please share in the comments below!

 

And for those of you who want it, here’s the link to this week’s Weight Loss: Going Deeper video. Come on over!