Why the Silence

I owe the handful of long-time readers of this blog, which BTW is "private," not indexed by search engines (therefore no one new ever finds it), an explanation of why I have not posted over the past week.

An ugly incident a week ago froze my writing voice. At the end of a soccer game, my son was viciously attacked by members of the other team, angry that they had lost a close game, and specifically angry at him that despite their dirty play, they couldn't get around him all game long. Also angry he would not be intimidated by their trash-talking, their stare-downs, their non-whistled fouls, or their attempts to hurt him and his teammates.

Stripping off their shirts, which is ghetto for "I'm tough," half a dozen of them swarmed him, another half dozen formed a circle to witness his purported beating, and as I tried to reach him, I fell helplessly to the ground.

I feared he would be beaten to death before my eyes.

As it turned out, he was far too strong, well-conditioned, and athletic for them to land any serious punches or wrestle him to the ground, which was their real intention. It's a lot easier for bullies to do their dirty work with their feet, when a man is down, than with their fists, when he is bigger, stronger and smarter than they will ever be.

In the end, he emerged unscathed, and we ignored the racist taunts from these thugs as we left the scene and drove home. But I didn't stop shaking for 24 hours. I couldn't sleep or stop my chest from hurting. The nightmares were relentless those first few nights.

A week later, I'm sweating even as I key in these words. It was the worst moment of my life as a parent.

As a result of this assault, not only the assailants but their entire team has been banned for a year. Their head coach, the one truly responsible, has been banned as well.

So, I suppose, justice has been done.

My son has moved on, emotionally. I'm trying to. Violence in any guise is horrible and rarely justified. Self-defense is one of the few exceptions. So the fact that, as the closest witness described it to me, my son reacted violently when provoked, I can say that he threw the only clean punch of the entire incident. Outnumbered six-to-one, he decked a guy, who did not get up afterward.

So be it.

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