Loss......

Just after 3am my phone awoke with back to back phone calls. Unusual for my phone to ring at odd hours of the night these days. It was a phone call I feared I would one day get.

The person calling has been of significant importance in my life for almost a decade, and we have seen each other through some seriously rough times. When I saw who was calling, I first thought she and her girlfriend had probably had THE fight. But this, sadly, was not the case. She and I had, together and individually, bailed her little sister out time after time. She had been in and out of psychotic and abusive relationships, battled addiction since she was a young teenager, and had three precious children before she was 21. My friend and I both feared that one day we would get a call from some police department that little sister had died of an overdose, had been beaten to death by a boyfriend, or whatever. It was an unpleasant and heartbreaking thought, but we were realistic. We prayed that day would never come, and by Spirit's mercy she could get her life together, find self love, get off drugs, and be a good mom for her kids. Little sister had been mostly estranged from her family for months now, and had left the kids for them to care for.

All that came to a tragic close earlier tonight.

My friend and her mom sat watching the evening news when a story ran about Oakland's 75th homicide for the year. The street was where her little sister had been living with her most recent boyfriend. The victim was around little sister's age, and fit little sister's description. I can imagine that they sat, mouths gaping, until my friend found the courage to call the police department. The victim had yet to be ID'd. She explained how the victim sounded like her sister, and gave her name, described her tattoos and physical attributes. The county coroner and police pulled little sister's photo from the DMV and positively ID'd her as the shooting victim, calling my friend back with the tragic news.

They CALLED BACK.

They didn't send a detective or officer.

THEY FUCKING CALLED!!!

I can't bring myself to recount the details of the murder, but to only say that her boyfriend is in custody as the prime suspect. According to what brief news reports I can find on the net, so is the person who called it in to police.

My heart is breaking for my friend, her mom, her brothers, those three beautiful children that I love like my own blood nieces / nephews. I want to go to them and hold them all while they scream and cry and grieve. Loss of life at any age is a sad time. Loss of life with someone so young, that you know could have had happy days ahead, is such a terrible thing there is no accurate human verbiage to adequately explain those emotions.

PLEASE SAY A PRAYER FOR THIS FAMILY AS THEY GRIEVE FOR THE LOSS OF A DAUGHTER, A SISTER, AND THE MOTHER OF THREE......