Trayvon Martin could be my son

Trayvon Martin could be my son.

I have resisted writing about his story because it has been beaten to death. No pun intended. Everyone has an angle on how he died or why he died. Everyone believes they know what happened but the only two people who will ever know what truly happened on that rainy night are Trayvon and George Zimmerman. George Zimmerman lived to tell the story. His story. Unfortunately Trayvon did not.

Every time I think of the confrontation that happened I get sick to my stomach. Trayvon Martin could be my son. I think of my son walking through a strange neighbourhood drinking an Arizona Ice Tea with a bag of skittles. Minding his own business and trying to get home. I think of how scared he would have been to have someone following him. Someone trailing him particularly when he was not of that neighbourhood and did not know the people there.

I think of the mind of a teenager and what could be going through his mind at the time. Fight or flee. Stand my ground or get out of dodge. I think of Trayvon Martin and all I can think about is the fact that he could be my son. I feel the pain of his mother and his father. The pain of the pain of losing a child in a senseless way. The only people knowing the truth of what happened that night - Trayvon and George.  One dead and one alive. Two strangers destined to share a fate only the Universe understands.

I think about how scared my son would be if someone drew a gun on him. I question if he saw the gun would he fight for his life or would accept fate for what it is? I wonder if Trayvon died trying to live? I wonder why his story has made national and international headlines when people are killed each and every day. Why is Trayvon so special that he has created such sensation in his death?

And then I saw a clip by Pastor TD Jakes that explained a why that made sense to me. According to TD Jakes, sometimes the Creator chooses people to become a catalyst for change. He said every so often God uses someone else’s pain to galvanise us to help to recognize what matters and what is important.

In other words, sometimes a person ‘s death becomes synonymous of the society we live in and he becomes the martyr for the rest of us to understand just how precious life is. Just how much we are all the same. How we all hurt the same. Feel pain the same. How senseless it is that we judge each other by our outward appearances when we are all the same inside.

Making me think of when Trayvon fell to the ground his red blood spilled out of him as did the red blood coming out of the back of George Zimmerman’s head. There was no difference between the blood spilled by Trayvon and the blood spilled by George Zimmerman. Blood is blood whether it comes from a black man, white woman, Asian child or Native American.

Yet one was killed because he looked different from the people that lived in the neighbourhood and some believe one was freed because he looked like the people that lived in the neighbourhood. When will we learn that we are all the same and it matters not what we look like, how well educated we are, where we live, or  how wealthy we are. Those things matter not because they are only temporary as are our physical forms.

Trayvon may have been tried by the human judicial system flawed by our human imperfections, prejudiceness and fear. But he will forevermore go down in history as the young man who got people thinking about how we view others. Got people thinking about whether gun laws need to be changed. Got people thinking about the way the judicial system works or does not work. He has been given wings to be greater than George Zimmerman who will go through the rest of his life carrying the burden of what really happened that night.

Trayvon was chosen to be the light in the darkness for the rest of us. To help us to see just how one action can lead to an irreversible outcome  when we fail to take the time to understand where we are and what we are. Trayvon is the hero in his story. The story he did not get to tell us physically but the story he chose to come here for us to finish in his honour. To stop judging and blaming and to start accepting and loving.

RIP Trayvon Martin. You have earned your wings. You could be my son. And I will honour you for what you left behind for all of us. The legacy of a young man struck down in his prime because of fear. Reminding me always in the absence of fear there is only love… Namaste.