When you're young you never expect anything bad to happen to you, or the people that you love. Sure, you're mildly aware that you could lose a parent if they're getting up there in age. You're warned against the dangers of drinking and driving, and you worry about your friends on weekends and during special occasions like Prom Night or Homecoming. But you never expect to lose your friends due to circumstances outside of your control, or on a large scale. You never expect to become numb to death. Not unless you live in a neighborhood like mine.
Where I come from in West Virginia, the people are poor. And the neighborhood that I lived and went to school in during high school was even more poor, and consequently, more crime-ridden and dangerous. People would find out where I lived and refuse to come over to hang out. Others made me feel guilty for needing a ride home, because they would have to drive through my neighborhood. If I was at school late because of extra-curriculars, my friends wouldn't let me walk home alone, even though my school was only a block and a half from my apartment complex. And though I moved to another city midway through high school, I still continued to go to my old neighborhood for school, and also because that's where all of my friends were. Oftentimes we would also hang out in the other 'bad part of town', which was the West Side.
This is another place where in recent years, crime has taken over due to increased levels of poverty, inadequate education, and lack of a job market. Even now, as I live about three hours away in Berea, KY to attend Berea College, I am reminded every day that I am a 'poor Appalachian youth'. My low socioeconomic status, coupled with 'leadership qualities', are the only reason that I receive Berea's tuition-free promise. And I'm glad for that reminder, because I refuse to forget where I came from. I still hear about violence occurring back home all of the time, the most recent of which being this very week, when yet another person that I have known since elementary school lost his life on the streets of Charleston/South Charleston, WV. Being a college student at Berea has made me accustomed to being around other poor people who have also dealt with trauma in their pasts, so much so that I sometimes forget that the rest of the world doesn't live like the majority of us do. The rest of the world doesn't constantly see death at the hands of extreme poverty.
By the time that I was eighteen, I had lost three friends. I won't mention any names out of respect to their memory and their families, but one was lost to suicide, one to untreated medical issues, and one to gun violence. I turn twenty next month, and in the last two years I've lost three more friends - all to gun violence. Now, you may ask, what does this have to do with poverty? Everything. If West Virginia were not so poor, two of my friends would have had access to mental/physical healthcare that would have probably saved their lives. And as we all know, crime follows poverty. When people are poor, they get desperate. When they're desperate, they turn to crime. This is how a place that used to be considered 'small town and safe' turned into a battleground that would claim the lives of people that barely had a chance to build futures that they would never see.
But I'm not here to make a statement about poverty, or about gun violence. I'll attest to my feelings about those topics through my activism. I'm here as a friend. As a mourner. As a frustrated youth. I mentioned earlier that another friend of mine died this week. When I found out, at first I didn't believe it. I couldn't believe that another person was gone. I didn't know what to do. I shut down. I locked myself in my room for almost two days and now I'm here, fighting tears in my eyes, wondering why so many people that I grew up with are dying. Feeling guilty because I'm still here, and I'm doing things that they're never going to be able to do. I'm going to college. I'm trying to start a career. I'm living, I'm breathing, I'm going through the ups and downs of the every day ... and where are they? Why aren't they here? None of it makes any sense, and I'm filled with this blind anger that I have no idea what to do with. Do I get mad at the system, for not providing education and medical treatment to the youth of West Virginia? How can I effectively fight an entire system? Do I get mad at the people that shot my friends? If so, what am I supposed to do? Hunt them down? Fight for justice? Even if the corrupt system decides to put those people behind bars (which in most cases, they haven't), that's not going to bring anyone back. It's not going to make a difference at all.
When I think about everyone that I've lost for no reason in my twenty years of life, I'm filled with a sadness so heavy that my stomach feels empty, my throat hollow, and my chest tight. And then my rage sets in, causing heat to flood up my arms, into my chest, and over my face until my eyes burn so much that they swell up with tears and it gets hard to breathe. And that's it. I usually cry, and then I do breathing exercises, and then I try to move on to get through my day. I mean, what else can I do? I fight every day for the things that I believe in, for reform, for justice ... but nothing gets any better. My friends keep dying. Usually in my articles I try to offer positive solutions or optimism, but today my heart is too broken for that. And I'm not going to apologize for it. So I guess I'm going to end this with a dedication:
To all of my friends that aren't here anymore, you are severely missed. I think about you often. You all are a huge part of the fire that keeps me going, and keeps me fighting for a better society so that what happened to you doesn't continue to happen to other people like us. I hope that you're all at peace. Really. You deserve it.
