[Nat]

For Josh, the first boy I ever loved.

I met him in the library in 8th grade. I was up on the ladder, re-organizing the books. I felt him enter the room. I climbed down off the ladder and there he was. The new kid. Tough. Cool. Confident. Humble. Beautiful. I introduced myself. He said I had the softest voice he'd ever heard. And so began a period of my life that I may never really overcome.

We were friends that year, then in the summer we became boyfriend and girlfriend. He was in a lot of fights. He never seemed to start them, but other guys would attack him and he'd fight back. He was all instinct. I saw it happen a few times. He was a tough guy and all these other guys wanted to prove themselves against him. Once three guys jumped him at one time. He was never one to back down. After that he carried a knife.

He had moved here to get away from his physically abusive mom. He thought he'd try his luck with the dad he'd never met. His dad was worse. Drunken, cruel and vicious. And so desperately poor that Josh often went without food. He was skin and bones and muscle and instinct and loyalty and a very warm heart. He treated friends like family because his friends were the only family he had.

One time, after his dad beat him, I asked him why he wouldn't hit his father back. He said he would never hit a parent back. Any other guy, sure, but not his own father. He was never once violent or even angry toward me. He made me art, he cooked for me, he was always good to me and accepting of me, warm and sweet and open. I encouraged him to contact CPS and report the abuse he was experiencing. Somebody came out and told his dad not to hit him anymore. Which resulted in further beating. Eventually there was a beating so bad that it ended in him being kicked down the stairs. It landed him in the hospital with bruises and broken bones and landed his father finally in jail. I begged my mom to let him live with us, but she did not want my boyfriend living in our house. We were both 15 at that time and not sexually active.

That was the age I learned that I was powerless to protect those I loved. It's never stopped me from trying.

After he was hospitalized, things were never the same between us. He had walls around him after that and there was no more real communication between us. He became cold and withdrawn, and eventually we broke up. I heard through the grapevine that his grandmother shamed him into dropping the charges against his dad. He went back home to the dilapidated trailer they shared. Soon he got kicked out of school for not having his shots. Soon after that, though I'd never known him to steal, he went to the local Walmart and changed out his old shoes for new ones. He tried walking out of the store and was stopped in the parking lot by the security guard. That knife he carried? He pulled it out and stabbed the security guard 6 times in the stomach.

When my mom was reading the paper one morning, she read the headline to me and asked if I thought I knew the person who did it. The headline mentioned the kid's age was 16. I said, "Josh just turned 16 two weeks ago." I knew it was him the same way I knew him before I ever laid eyes on him that day in the library. A few days later his dad called me and told me it was him. I remember thinking, "Thank God he is at least away from you. Thank God he is in a place now where he can at least defend himself, where he will have access to an education, possibly therapy, 3 meals a day." He was tried as an adult and convicted of attempted murder and sentenced to 20 years. He was out in 5 - he never saw an adult prison. I saw him then, on the verge of out of control, instinct plus a sort of frenetic energy, free. He became a cook and then a chef and then a father.

I lost touch with him until a few months ago. Found him on facebook, had a few really good conversations with him. *He and the mother of his baby had broken up and he had slipped into a depression. *He hadn't seen his kid in a long time. He was working odd jobs, warehouse jobs, construction. He said there weren't as many jobs for banquet chefs these days - especially those who hadn't been to school for it. He said he'd lost his confidence, that he'd changed. He was depressed and had entered a sort of desolation, but he had good friends and that helped.

There have been so many times over the years where I've questioned my judgment about Josh. Why did I date somebody who was so much trouble, who had so much trouble going on in his life, who was ultimately a "bad guy" and who almost took an innocent guy's life? But Josh wasn't a bad guy. He was a good guy who was screwed up. I honestly think he would have been a great guy if he'd had great parents. And knowing his childhood made me more of an advocate of the pro-choice movement than any feminist argument has. No child deserves to live unwanted, despised, abused by his own flesh and blood. Some people make it out of that kind of childhood without becoming what he became. *But even after he'd done something unimaginably terrible, he kept trying to put his life together even though he was in a downward spiral.

Because of some trauma in my own life and because of what happened with Josh, I became emotionally numb shortly after he did what he did. For twelve years I was numb. *Life was sleep-walking. One day the feeling began to come back and I realized I couldn't live the life I'd been living anymore. I came out to myself, I came out to my husband, I left my marriage, I could feel again, I became too sensitive to watch scary movies or read upsetting news stories. And all that happened way back then was something I could finally mourn. I could finally accept the awfulness of what happened way back then. *My childhood ended with Josh - my childhood faith in the impossible, my childhood understanding of the world as a supportive and loving place. My childhood faith in the systems in place to protect children. My childhood faith in my own parent. My childhood faith that people can overcome their circumstances if they just want to badly enough.

I will always have the memory of sitting in the bleachers together crying and wishing together for a different sort of life. A life where he could be safe, where I could be safe. I will have the memories of many walks in the woods, of sitting together in front of a small fire and taking comfort in that together. Life may have been hard, but it was still life, and we were two people with a fire in a cold and cruel world.

I found out today that Josh died two weeks ago in a car wreck. He was, "trying to pass in a no-passing zone," and he hit another car head-on. There were no skid marks on the road. He didn't swerve or hit his brakes. Thank the gods, the people in the other car lived. And so ends the life of a person who was once a kid whom I loved very much. A kid who never got to be a kid.

Because of him, I will always have compassion for those who screw up, for prisoners, for child abuse survivors, for those who grew up unwanted, abused, powerless, unloved. I will never believe in a stark contrast between good people and bad people. At the end of the day, I want to think Josh was a good person despite the things he did. If nothing else, he was a loved person. Loved by many people very dearly. He was a good and loyal friend, loving, warm, polite, understanding, accepting and encouraging to everybody he was close to.

I do not know if his last moments were intentional or accidental, but if they were intentional I wish he had had more regard for the lives of others. He was born and baptized into violence, and his end was also in violence.

Because of Josh, I will never be the same. Goodbye, Josh. May you have peace now.

Love,
Natalie