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Before My Son Killed a Man

A painful remembering of innocence lost

Liberty Forrest
Age of Empathy

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Author’s son at about 2 years old
Author’s photo of son Jacob, 2 years old

Before my son killed a man, I could love him without feeling guilty for it. I could worry about him without feeling like I had no right to care. I could be his mother without wearing the heavy cloak of shame and accusation that others draped around my shoulders.

Before my son killed a man, I could think about him without my heart shattering into a million pieces.

Long before my son killed a man, he was a happy little boy. A little boy who loved mac and cheese and hated vegetables. Hated them so much, in fact, that when he was about 4 years old, one laundry day I discovered the remnants of vegetable soup in the pockets of his overalls.

And before my son killed a man, he was a little boy who loved to laugh. I can still hear his uproarious belly laughs as he cracked up over the dumbest things. He would especially howl at his own “homemade” (and truly terrible) jokes. His four older siblings would often shake their heads and wonder what on earth their youngest brother could have possibly thought was so funny. He never cared; their confused expressions only made him laugh harder.

Twenty-seven years before my son killed a man, my eldest daughter (we’ll call her “Meg”) gave birth to him and called him Jacob. She had just turned 15.

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