(no subject)
Maybe it's just me. I could be wrong, I know it happens often. I've spent the last few days with my girlfriend at her mothers house, she had a minor surgical procedure over the weekend and wanted to be here to recover, and I'm here to help and support and what ever it is boyfriends are supposed to do in times such as this. But, that's not what I was thinking when I clicked on the update link for my journal today. What I was thinking, as I sit in the small office on the top floor watching through the window as an endless procession of tourists, idiots, sickos, and degenerates pass the Harvey house where a family was murdered recently is, "Why? Why are we like this?"
The truth is I know why people are creeping by the house in their cars staring at the now boarded up windows and the many flowers, candles and such on the lawn people have left in rememberance and respect for the family. I just don't understand why they can't hold it at bay. I don't know why they don't realize that their constant crawling through the neighborhood is keeping the poor people of this neighborhood on a keyed up level of watchfulness and anxiety that's not really very good for them.
I guess most people don't think they get a chance to get a look at something where "EVIL" actually was not long ago. It's hard for most people to believe things like this happen or at least it brings it front and center when it happens in a "neighborhood like this." And don't get me wrong, I'm a ghost story and horror movie junkie from way back, but I wouldn't have come down here to just drive by and look at the house. There seems to be some kind of second hand disrespect to it all. I don't know if any of them think of the fact that it is disrespectful to the Harveys to come and gawk at the place where they met such a terrible, senseless, random end. It's not like a battlefield or something where people died because of something they believed in, because people died trying to achieve something which took the kind of courage which faces certain death and marches on. No, this was a place where good people met a horrible end for no reason at all. It's funny, but maybe it's me. The murders themselves didn't shock me too much, the reaction afterwards has though to some degree. I wonder what that says about me.
But then again, depending on what you listen to, the reason is what people are grasping for. After reading the article in the local paper, I thought it was going to end up being related to drugs or organized crime of some kind, simply because the crime itself sounded quite organized in what the papers said at first. Now, it seems things are different. I've not heard why the people who comitted the crime chose that house in the first place, but it sounds like a somewhat random act. It doesn't sound very well planned or thought out at all. Then again who really knows. I do know people are searching for a reason though, and I guess that too is human nature. The unlocked door has been a big one in the people I've heard talking. "Ya know, that's why I always lock my door, because ya never know.....", but that's pretty feeble really, and it's also a kind of assigning blame to the victim which is astonishing to me too. It's as if people are saying, "Well, if they'd just have locked their doors." I don't buy that though. I don't know what I buy about the whole thing, but I know I don't buy that. I think the Harvey's believed in something, and their unlocked door was a sign of it. Their involvement in different aspects of the community was a sign of it too. It seems the horror of the circumstances which they died under has overshadowed the goodness with which they've lived. I wonder what people would say if I stopped them while they were driving by the house in their cars and gave them a list of things the Harveys contributed time or money to and asked them to contribute the two dollars or so it took them in gas to drive over there. Just give to the things the Harvey's believed in because they obviously meant enough for you to drive over here to pay your respects. It would be funny just to see their faces. I wonder how many of them would be ashamed of themselves because they were caught. I think, because they were caught, is the operative phrase in that sentence though.
I never knew them, but it's pretty sad that their gone. It's sad they went the way they did. It's sad the community has lost people who cared about it. I can respect that. I often think about things I might be able to do to help better Richmond, but obviously I've only gotten as far as thinking at this point. I don't seem to think my ideas will do any good. Combine that with a degree of selfishness with my time, and really, it's just thoughts and whispers, a lot of talking about how things should be. I think they had the right idea though. The only how in the how things should be is probably just people getting involved in their communities. But, it seems I'm not the only one who's too self centered for all of that. Seems most people are. I don't even know if it's really the Harvey's themselves and what little I know of them which has brought all of this out of the recesses of my mind. Probably not. I've seen this kind of thing before and was always puzzled by many aspects of it. Not a surprise though, I'm puzzled by a lot of things, especially these days. I've been put in a position recently where I don't know if I've been forced to or just chosen to really start thinking some about what I believe about the nature of good and bad, right and wrong, or if you please, good and evil. Not necessarily because of my recent proximity to the house, but I think that's added to it. Part of it seems to be connected to the fact that they left a legacy of good behind, through being available, being of service to their community. It's a thing most of us hope for, but few of us take action toward, leaving the world just a bit better than when we found it. It's a constant theme in my thoughts anyway. I do see life as the only time we have to really show what we believe in, that our time spent when our lives are finished point very directly to what we believed to be right and good, what we believed the meaning of happiness was.
I've known a couple of extraordinarily good people so far, and I know when I think about their lives, the things they believed are written all over. My great grandmother was one, and her life is a road map in human kindness and compassion. Someone who was my fathers closest friend for the first fourteen years of my life, his is written in honesty, humor, and like my great grandmother in a way, a love without judgment. They were extremely different people, but equally good. They brought lots of beautiful things into peoples lives. I think in a lot of ways, as some people have done for me, they were able to reaffirm some peoples faith in humanity. Maybe that's the greatest gift we can give each other. To just show each other why we don't have to be afraid, and that the world isn't quite as sick and depraved as we fear it is, especially if we look inside ourselves and add a little love and kindness to things we do. I know for me that was a big one. I used to think the world was a terrifying, horrific place and I was probably afraid of nothing more than I feared misplaced trust. I thought goodness and kindness came at a price, no matter what. No one showed them unless they had something to gain from them, or more specifically, from me for showing me kindness, compassion and such. I had to be shown it wasn't always true before I could believe. That's not to say the world isn't often a sick, depraved, terrifying and horrible place, but that's not all there is. I guess it's kind of like the world is made as we see it. So, sometimes it's made a certain way until we have the chance to see it otherwise.
I don't know. It's all just really strange as far as I'm concerned, and maybe the problem in it all is that once again, I'm trying to understand and really I don't have to understand. I do know I have new ideas about the way I see things. Not just today, but for tomorrow too. It's funny but finding out that things like human kindness, compassion and honesty really do exist has changed my view on everything really. I can see a different future than I did before, for myself and for lots of other people, for our nation really, if enough people could really embrace these things and act not only as if they do exist, but that they are a part of everyday normal life. I wonder, seeing how history is really the great equalizer, will we be looked back on as the great bringers of freedom and democracy? Or will it be tyrants, war mongers and conquerors? Because really most of the things I've been talking about extend beyond our local communities, but they start in our local communities. If we were to begin to put kindness and such forward in our communities, we'd be a nation of people who live by kindness. Maybe I'm naive though. I'm sure that's possible, I'm sure also that it's deliberately chosen because I don't like the alternative, being bitter, pessimistic, sarcastic and angry all the time. It's tiring to hate things that much. It's tiring to try and keep it all from falling apart, exhausting emotionally, mentally and spiritually. It can be exhaustive to be naive too, but I guess I justify it by thinking I'd rather be exhausted from trying to buil something better than keeping up something that doesn't work.