Grief and rage.
One born of caring, the other born of carelessness.
Grief and rage, and gratitude for the greatest outpouring of community concern in a generation.
He was a young man named Trey, and we met him and lost him over four hopeful and heartbreaking days.
Four days in which a young man and a loving family reminded us what matters and who we are. Four days in which there was no division, no us and them, no suburban and city, just four days of work and prayer and common humanity. Four days in which thousands had one heart and one hope.
To bring a young man home.
To heal a mother’s fretful heart.
With a salve applied in significant portion by mothers whose own hearts knew pain and challenge, whose own experiences of love and parenting gave them a unique understanding and compassion. We don’t all grasp what autism is, but we do know what love is, and it was the love of mothers and strangers by the hundreds and thousands who searched and prayed and sent out blasts on social media. Some with autism stickers on their cars, many bundled against the cold, some trekking through snow and organizing searches, or bringing in sandwiches and coffee.
From across the city and across the region, people came, and people cared.
And a mayor with tears in her eyes thanked them, and absolved them.
“This community and this police department did everything they could,” she said. “Everyone did everything they could.
“Everyone stepped up and we really, really appreciate that.
“As the mayor of this community, I could not be … prouder.”
But the love of family and strangers was not enough to bring Trey home. When he walked off toward downtown on South Avenue, he walked into a fate that we may never fully know or understand. Though the arms of countless would eventually open to him, Thursday morning when he got off the bus he was alone with the cold streets and a world that didn’t notice a boy walking against the flow of arriving students.
And a school that couldn’t even take attendance.
And a district that can’t give a straight answer or do the simplest of tasks.
That’s the rage.
While the mayor and the chief faced the community nobly at the press briefing, the superintendent did a dance of non-answers and deflections, glibly assuring parents that their children were safe when the tragedy at hand was glaring proof to the contrary. The mayor offered her heart, the superintendent covered her ass.
And the rage boils about a young man dropped off in front of a school that in an act of incompetence or dishonesty marked him “present” when, in fact, he never came through the door. That got the school a day’s state aid money, but left parents and police unaware that a young man with special needs was in the wind and in danger.
And that cost him his life.
That’s the tragic irony of this heartbreaking story.
Everyone responded lovingly and admirably, except the people whose responsibility it was to watch over and protect young Trey last Thursday morning.
The police department and the law-enforcement agencies that assisted it were outstanding. The non-profits and the volunteers were selfless, the family was loving and inspiring, the response from across the community was overwhelming.
But the school couldn’t even take attendance right.
And while a family went about its business expecting that a son was safe at school, that handicapped lad was walking toward his doom. Because his elementary school didn’t greet him at the bus, notice him walking away from the school, or detect his absence from class.
That’s the rage.
The anger that a boy and his family and his city were failed by a school whose superintendent couldn’t answer the simplest or most basic questions about what went wrong and what should have gone right.
That’s the rage.
But that is not all. And it is not this place.
Because this place got it right. This place stood tall. This place searched through the snow, and fell to its knees, and looked for and loved a little boy who walked off alone.
And now this place weeps.
The divers brought him out and Rochester brought him home, and in death he taught us about life, and how we ought more often to live it.