Freshly Cut: How We’re Losing the Value of Simple Human Connections
With the Orlando shooting as backdrop, a neighborhood death serves a reminder of the importance of community.
Today I did something I haven’t done in a while. I cried. Yeah, I admit it — I cried. And I cried while mowing the lawn of all circumstances. For me, mowing the lawn is one of those activities where my mind tends to wander of its own accord.
Today we learned of the mass shooting at the nightclub in Orlando that killed at least 50 people. It was on my mind, but it wasn’t what made me cry.
I’d also been thinking about a book I was reading — Tribe by Sebastian Junger. The subject of the book is quite heavy — exploring the aspects of our society that make us feel disconnected, to the extent that we so often have mass shootings, and that veterans are experiencing PTSD at alarming rates. But that’s not what did it, either.
What put me over the edge was a neighborhood kid who had died just a couple days ago in a motorcycle accident. His name was Carter. He was 17.
I had never met him in person.
A little over a year ago, about a week after my wife and I brought our newborn girl back from the hospital, I woke up one morning and realized something was missing from our back deck. Someone had stolen our Big Green Egg, which is an expensive and very heavy outdoor grill. It never dawned on me that someone might have the stones to steal it, but sure enough some brazen thieves lifted it overnight. Our dog, who surely would have run them off, was at my mom’s for the first couple weeks after the baby was born.
I called the police and reported the incident on our community’s website seeking information. A few weeks later after some personal sleuthing, I was able to track down the culprit, who turned out to be a teenager in my own neighborhood — Carter. After having a threatening conversation with him over the phone, the kid returned the grill, dropping it off in my side yard a couple hours later, unseen by my wife and me.
I thought long and hard about what to do next. I had friends and family suggesting I press charges and put this kid in jail. Instead I decided to call his mom. She was surprised and disappointed to hear of her son’s misdeed, and she informed me that Carter had some history with trouble, particularly since his dad left the family a couple years back and then died shortly thereafter. On top of that, I came to find out his mother was blind, and Carter had been to juvenile hall before. Ultimately, I decided that another stint in ‘juvy’ wasn’t the answer, so I asked the police not to press charges but to give him a stern talk. They also worked with him to catch his partner in crime, an adult, in exchange for leniency. I had additionally demanded from his mom that she bring him by to personally apologize to me. Unfortunately, she failed to hold him to that. Or maybe he just didn’t listen.
What I remembered when I broke down in front of my lawn mower was that I had been walking with my daughter near his house just a few days ago. In that moment, I had wondered about how Carter was doing, whether or not he had turned his life around at all, and if he was staying out of trouble. I recall thinking that I wished I would have seen him out in his yard so that I could ask about him, and maybe even tell him to keep on the straight and narrow. It was the first I had thought about him or the incident in a long time. But I discovered in retrospect that the day I walked by was very likely the same day of his death.
What made me so sad was not that I had any sort of affection for Carter. He was by all accounts a delinquent — stealing, speeding through the neighborhood on his ill-fated motorcycle. But he could’ve learned from his mistakes and turned his life around, and I feel in a small way that our neighborhood and society let him slip through the cracks. He didn’t have a father figure, and most likely didn’t have a mentor. He was hanging around the wrong crowd. I’d seen more than one neighborhood post complaining about his speeding. At 17, he definitely shouldn’t have been riding a motorcycle. But I don’t think there was anyone around to grab him by the arm and tell him to cut it out. No one was pulling him aside and telling him his actions could lead to prison or getting killed. Someone needed to tell him. And tell him the right way.
When I was young, I remember neighbors keeping me and other kids on my block honest— either personally scolding me, or knocking on the door to tell my parents. I don’t think that happens much these days. I think people are afraid that they are overstepping their boundaries for fear of litigation and other repercussions. I think too often we see a troubled teenager now, and we feel that there should be a government program to deal with it. It’s a sad state of affairs.
I can honestly tell you that I know next to nothing about any of my neighbors around me, and I’ve lived in my neighborhood for over two years now. Most get home, pull into their garages and enter their houses from inside— I rarely even get the chance to try. But I don’t make a tremendous effort either. I don’t want to be that nosy guy. Or the guy taking up their time in the precious few hours between work and bedtime. But who knows, maybe they’re making the same calculations and just waiting for me to reach out to them.
With another senseless national tragedy hanging over our heads, I say let’s all try something crazy this week. Let’s break out of our collective shells and do one of the most uncomfortable things we can do. Have a meaningful conversation with someone we don’t really know — someone at work, or one of your neighbors. Someone you’ve only waved ‘hello’ to, or maybe just shared some small talk with. Don’t force it, but try to take it beyond the level of small talk. Maybe you’ll make that person’s day on a day they really need it; maybe you’ll become long-term friends, or at least confidants; or maybe you’ll never have another significant conversation with that person for the rest of your life. But hey — at least you gave it a shot. And really, what’s the worst that could happen?
Try it out this week, and do it again next week, and then again after that. And tell each of those people to try it, too. It’s just a simple way you can take yourself, and others with you in a small, meaningful way to Capitulo 2.
