Feeling thankful...

Last night, we went to a Spaghetti Dinner at Malden Elementary School
in honor of Jahlil Clements. His story is both heartbreaking and infuriating.

We go to church in Malden, which is really just an extension of Charleston. In fact, many residents of Malden use Charleston as their mailing address. But it's a small community and reminds me of Tilden - where I grew up. There's not much in Malden...some churches, a school, a FastCheck and a volunteer fire department. Very much like Tilden. If something tragic happened in Tilden, it affected nearly everyone....because in such a small town, you knew everyone, went to school with them, knew their parents....

We had to wait outside for half an hour to get into the school. I didn't mind one bit. I was happy to wait. So many people had come out to help raise funds to provide this young man a decent funeral service - it just made you feel warm inside. JJ fell asleep on the way there. I had to hold him in line - he was being pretty clingy, just waking up and all. But again....I didn't mind one bit. I was overwhelmingly thankful I had a little boy that needed holding.

We don't really have a community where we are. We live up (what I like to call) a country cul-de-sac. We don't have any children in school and don't associate or see any group of people on a regular basis - except our church family. So we've kind of adopted Malden as our own little community to be a part of. We never met Jahlil, but I just knew if something like this had happened while we were living in Tilden, it would be the same way. It really makes me miss home.

While at the dinner, JJ decided he didn't want any spaghetti and would skip straight to the chocolate cake. That was alright by me.