Not Guilty

On Friday I woke with a stone in my belly. As I walked my dog I imagined what you were both thinking, whether you had time together to reflect on the coming day or if you were separated until your met your maker. When I dressed for work I imagined you also getting ready for the day, ready to be judged. Were you nervous, vomiting with fear, resolved and calm, in a state of acceptance, arrogance, denial? Did you think of your father, our grandparents, and the path that led you here? Did you whisper god’s name.

I remember as a child you told me that I would go to hell as I was never baptised, do you still believe you’re going anywhere but?

Were you scared?

I thought of you both on the drive to work with a stone in my belly. I secretly prayed to the god we both know I don’t believe in that you wouldn’t make the 6 o’clock news. I prayed to that invisible god that your names, our name wouldn’t sound from the TV that is constantly turned on in the waiting room at work.

I was scared

I was flinched ready to be smack by the shame. I was waiting for the beating, just like old times.

I felt naked, still named in our family name, I wasn’t ready, I hadn’t taken a big enough breath to submerge myself long enough in these murky waters you stirred up. I was exposed like a deer in the forest, just waiting for the hunter’s gun.

Should I defend you? Should I distance myself from you? Deny being a part of you? Should I stay as silent as I have always been taught to be?

How did it come so quickly, why wasn’t I more prepared for this? Would people come knocking at our door late at night again? Would they start watching our house again? Would the police find any reason to pull over our cars, raid our houses? Would the threats start again? Would the families of the victims track me down again? Would it all start again?

I was scared

Is it easier to just change my name, to never speak of them again, to pretend that I came from a different family, a different life? Lie myself a new life? And what would that life look like? What should I be called and how do I find meaning in that new name? There are too many people in my life already that know, too many that I want to keep. I feel less and less a part of something as no one will have the same name, a family with no name....is still a family right? But even if we do, does this mean they won’t find us anymore?

When you put on your suit for court this morning did you think about us too? Did you even give us a moment’s thought? As you stood on the stand and smugly pleaded Not Guilty did you think that maybe others would pay for that plea? When the judge reserved 8 weeks in January for your first trail did you think about the tax payer’s money that would be wasted or did you just smile at the thought of 8 weeks away from your cell’s vacant walls? Did you think anything at all?

On Friday I woke with a stone in my belly and a thousand thoughts of you in my head. On Friday night I went to bed thinking of January, counting the months that I had left to breathe, to plan, to be called by another name.

Even if I don’t want to be.