A plague of holiday tragedies
The East St. Louis holiday season has gotten off to rotten start this year, thanks to some unforeseen tragedies and just plain criminality on the part some.
Mind you, I’ve never been one to bask in the glow of the yuletide season. No, I won’t max out my credit cards (for the next year) in an orgy of superficial gift-giving.
Nor will I send my electric bill through the roof by lighting up the entire neighborhood with Xmas lights.
Well, bah humbug! Call me Scrooge if you like. I prefer “Scrooge” to being referred to as “broke” or “bankrupt,” particularly when I know that none of the holiday “traditions” and window-dressing have anything to do with the true so-called holiday “spirit.”
Besides, the real Scrooges have already reared their ugly heads, just in time to put a damper on the festive mood of many ESL residents.
First a 14-month-old baby perished in a house fire, despite the best efforts of a relative who, ironically, is an EMS worker.
The following week, a 45-year-old resident, Barry Bonner, was shot to death, in front of his own home, by a 55-year-old Union Pacific Railroad detective, driving an unmarked car. An investigation into the matter is pending.
For the past three weeks, 19-year-old Anquiatte Parker and her 4-year-old cousin, Cermen Toney, have been missing (at press time), despite reported leads, numerous searches and police sketches of “persons of interest.”
And, most recently, thieves stole approximately $25,000 in tools from the Tomorrow’s Builders YouthBuild charter school in ESL, which specializes in the building trades. The youth in the program were building single-family homes which were to be occupied in time for the Christmas holidays.
I don’t mean to be Mr. Gloom and Doom, nor do I hope to dissuade any of my readers from vacating their seasonal tradition of creating a year’s worth of debt in a little under a month’s time.
Whether you’re a guy like me, who avoids the commercialization and exploitation of the holiday season, or a person who happens to be a tree- buying, gift-wrapping, wreath-hanging, carol-singing holiday traditionalist, family is the true focus throughout the holiday season.
The holidays either magnify that sense of family or accentuate our sense of grief, when we are reminded of family member whom we’ve lost since the last holiday season.
That’s further compounded in a small, close-knit community (such as ESL) where “everyone knows everyone” and, by extension, collectively feels the pain of so many multiple tragedies, particularly within such a short span of time.
Yet, knowing the true character and resilient nature of East St. Louis and those who refer to her as home, these tragedies, too, shall pass and ESL and those affected will pull together to overcome the adversity of this trying period.
Hopefully, the true spirit of this season will prevail and those with information (in these cases) will come forth and end the torment of those directly affected. Put yourself in their shoes.
Until then, the holiday festivities won’t seem quite as festive.
Email: jtingram_1960@yahoo.com.