I SPOKE TO a perfect stranger on the telephone a couple of nights ago.
By accident, some foul-up of technology or maybe a lost soul who needed to talk.
As we spoke, a young man to a mother, I helped her to explain what went wrong. She was a mother whose son had gone 'bad'. Her voice spoke of the anger and anguish of it all but more than that, the pain.
Pain at having grown him up, the RIGHT way, at having taught him right from wrong, only to see him embrace the wrong.
At having clothed him - herself - fed him - herself - loved him - herself.
But now he's one of the 'lost ones'. One of those who tout the gun, who sniff cocaine, who ... who ... who ...I could go on but you know them don't you? You see it in their eyes when you pass them on the street, the ones with no hope in their eyes, no future to look forward to. No hope. No future. And you wonder.
You wonder how these people called parents could let them escape, could have let them slip, could have created these MONSTERS. Didn't they know? Didn't they see it happening? Couldn't they see it coming a mile away? How do these people, these people called parents, live with themselves, knowing that they've failed?
Knowing those other people [us] will never understand what it feels like to have one's child go bad -- turn into a monster. After nine months, five hours of labour... you know the song....After all of that -- to have the human being brought into the world, turn into a monster.
So I told her that I understood, that it was not her fault, that: "You know how young people are."
"Pray for him," I said, me -- not a religious bone in me -- "It will be alright."
By Archibald Gordon
