RIP Jackson E. Carr - August 12, 1995 - April 15, 2002

Today, I went to the funeral of my co-worker, Mike's son who was murdered by his two siblings. I cannot even fathom the pain Mike...the father of all three children, and his wife and family are going through at this time. They continue to be in my prayers...

I came thinking I was old enough and strong enough to handle the funeral. For the most part, that was true. But after walking past the casket, and seeing Jackson's innocent, peaceful, and childish face... I could not help but choke up tears. I never realized that there was nothing more sad and disturbing than to see a child in a casket. I had never seen that before... just my grandparents and someone else's grandfather. Maybe other people have been through it before, but, I don't think even seeing it millions of times, I would ever feel less sorrow. It made me want to cry more when I saw that there were other children there and most if not all of them were crying... some intensely. They were probably in disbelief that this could happen to someone so young, so much like them. I saw this little blonde girl, probably about 6 years old, crying uncontrollably, looking affected by the tragedy beyond her years, and I wanted to come over to her and give her a big hug and comfort her. I didn't... because her mother ended up doing that for me.

What hurt even more was that after seeing him that one last time, I realized he was the little boy I had met at the end of last year when Mike brought him to work. He was the well-mannered, sweet little boy that I now wish I had the pleasure of knowing better. I don't think he or any child deserves what happened to him. He will be missed...

Right now, I feel two things... immense sadness and anger. I am sad for the whole family affected, and I am angry that children are actually capable of doing this to one another, let alone their own flesh and blood. I hate that there just some things that people do that you just can't predict or prevent...

When I drove up to the funeral home, across the street in front of the cemetary were around 15-20 media folks.. equipped with TV and still cameras. They were poised like cats stalking prey, and waiting for people to leave the building and take sad and sentimental looking images to portray in their 15 second news stories. After the service ended, all 200 or so of us gathered outside at the front of the building, and I watched as cameramen snapped away and seeked out people who looked most emotionally distraught by the event. You could see them aim right at people who were hugging each other and crying, or wiping away tears. I kept a pretty mellow face, as did the rest of my co-workers... I really didn't want to be one of their possible "models" or examples of people at the funeral. In a way I felt disgusted that they were doing this... but I guess the media sometimes needs images to say what they can't with words -- that's the only way I can justify their presence. The part where I felt most annoyed by the camera crews was when they were proceeding to take pictures at the actual burial site. I watched as a few cameramen followed the funeral home employees walking towards the site. I thought it was in a way very disrespectful that they wanted to tape any footage of the burial. It was so unnecessary.

I wish there was a lesson we could all learn from this to prevent it from happening in the future, but I couldn't come up with one. The only thing I've learned from this experience is that you should cherish every moment you can with your children, or perhaps anyone you ever come to know. Life is so precious... be thankful for every moment of it you get to have. We could always be here one moment, and not the next.