Thanksgiving

I had a wonderful Thanksgiving, full of life, love, laughter, and a family who has loved me as their own for the last eight years. This year was even more special as my cousin Debbie has adopted a baby girl named Anya from Russia, who is just absolutely precious. I'm in love already and can't wait to spend more time with her at Christmas.

However, even with the great part of Thanksgiving, I sit here in shock because I just found out that one of my former clients was stabbed to death last night by his neighbor. I can't even begin to comprehend this and my heart is aching for all of the youth who were friends with him who are going to have to begin working through this. I wish more than anything I could be there for them and offer them support and I can only hope and pray that their new case workers can help them begin to make sense of all of this.

I knew going into my former job that I was working with inner city youth, many of whom have gang connections and have experienced so much violence in their pasts. I just never expected this to happen to someone I knew. You hear about it so often but you always think, "That will never happen to my clients" and then it did. While I wasn't his case worker, I talked with him often enough and knew enough of his past and problems that this is hitting me hard. He wanted so much to change his life and had so many plans for his future. His excitement and passion about wanting to change his life gave me hope only for it to all end tragically. I just can't believe any of this happened...