Pacing

I paced tonight. I don't usually. I wandered around the newsroom, joked with co-workers, talked about upcoming stories, reread my story from today and then I paced. I wandered down the hall and opened the back door so I could feel the cool (relatively!) air and look out into the night.

I went downstairs and got a soda. I flipped through some old magazines on my desk. I'm restless. I don't know why. There's a tremendous amount of sadness around this story that I have never felt on a story before. I can't quite put my finger on it. It's not the death or watching the execution that bothers me so much on this.

It's the tremendous loss to the families. It's seeing the loss of father/son, the loss of a brother, uncle, grandfather. It's the Christmas dinners, the graduations, the first steps of a grandchild, the moments that make up a life that were killed when John Langley was killed. And all for $100 for crack cocaine. It makes me sick in a sad way. Maybe reporters aren't supposed to feel these things. But I do. I can't do this story and not feel it.

It's sad for Emmett, sad for the Langleys. Sad and senseless. And there's nothing that anything or anyone can do to change it. And that - I now understand, is why even when Emmett dies tomorrow, nothing else will change. John won't suddenly come to life. There will always be that hole in the lives of all those he touched.

Revenge and punishment? They only work in the movies where we don't have to walk away knowing anyone involved. It's a cruel joke Hollywood plays on us. We believe that killing someone will "make it better," that we'll cheer, that somehow it will be alright. But it won't. Michael Langley is right. Forgiveness, as contrary as it may seem, is the only freedom from the pain. On the other hand, as someone said, "It would be better for Emmett if he were a more sympathetic character. It's hard to feel compassion for a crack head who'd kill his friend for $100."

Emmett? I don't know. I don't know why he started using drugs. I don't know what his childhood was like or who he is. He never agreed to talk with me. I never got that chance to look into his eyes and talk to him. If I do get to see his eyes - it will be if he looks my way from the gurney tomorrow before he dies. I don't know what it will be like for his parents - if they are there - to watch their son die. But it's all painful and senseless and there are no answers, let alone any easy answers.

If Michael Langley could reach Emmett with his message of forgiveness and his hope of the faith that he has, the faith that drove him to forgiveness - then even when Emmett dies, there will be - for some at least - a light at the end of the dark tunnel.