Well, I know I dont post often, but still am very active reading all your posts for the last several months. I had an incident happen yesterday that I just want to share, it scares me to death thinking about it. I took my two year, my six year old, and a nine year old neighbor boy that my son had been playing with, to the park right down the street to play. I had been sitting on the bench, talking to my neighbor who was there with her 4 kids (all aged 5 and under) then I got up and went over to the big slide to watch my baby girl (who should have been ont the baby slide but she is very risky/acrobatic/fearless). The next thing I know here comes the neighbor lady all 4 kids in tow running and telling me to hurry up and get my kids and get out of there. She said something was happening, there was a fight going on. There had been a birthday party going on, and it seemed all the parents at the party were young parents, 18-20 ish. And sure thing I looked over and saw about 20 people from the party, gathered around in a cirlce yelling. The neighbor asked if I thought she was over reacting, I said absolutley not I agree lets round up the kids and get out of here, I tried to get my daughter to come down, she wouldnt, so I had to climb up the jungle gym to go get her, rounded up my son and the neighbor boy, went back to the bench to grab my keys, while the neighbor waited with my kids. As soon as I ran back to them I heard BANG BANG BANG, (from not even 20 feet away).
This part is the hardest, I just felt like I was frozen, I couldnt move fast enough, everything was happening in slow motion. The neighbor and I tried to decide where to run to, between us 7 children to protect. First we went to a trash barrell, everyone wasnt protected there, then behind a tree, and then finally we spotted a concrete table. We threw the children under the table (My knees are so scarred up, because I went down to my knees to hover over the kids). Then, I am not sure what our reasoning was from here, now I look back and am sure we were in a panic, we dont even live one block from the park, so we decided to run home.
The rest is a blur, we made it home and everyone is ok. But the part of this right now that just haunts me is how my six year old reacted. After we heard the shots, he started screaming at the top of his lungs "theyre trying to kill us, were going to die", and hyperventillating. My heart is just so broken right now, and I know I should forget it and not think about it, but that is just the worst thing I have ever had to deal with as a mother, to hear my baby panicking and screaming for (what he thought was) his life. He did this as we ran home, and for at least a two hours after we got home. I kept telling him everything was ok, and reassuring him, but its hard when your only training in life is to say "lets pray to Jehovah" or "things like this wont happen in the new system". I just didnt know exactly what to say to make him feel better.
I debated whether to call my own mother (looking for reassurance, yet knowing she would easily make this a way to be about "come back to Jehovah") I went ahead and called her, and I just dont feel better (I knew it) She told me a story of how they were at the hospital when my brother had his motorcyle accident (refused blood, went into comas, was close to being pronounced dead a few times) and there had been a gang shooting, both victims were at the same hospital. The gangs came into retaliate, and a gang member who obviously had a gun, started "questioning" my father to determine if he was a relative of the rival gang member who had been shot. So of course, my father started witnessing to him about why they were there. And all of a sudden where the gang member had been so enraged, kept his hand by his pocket like he was ready to shoot, his demeanor changed, he calmed down, and told my dad that his mother had studied and went to meetings for two years, those had been the happiest years of his life, and he left my parents alone. RIGHT! give me a break
sorry to rant.