TheBanyanTree: Justice?

[NancyIee at aol.com]

In a message dated 1/12/2007 12:43:17 P.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
sheribaity at yahoo.com writes:

We are  healing for the most part... some precious things will never be seen 
again...  we will survive and get through this... but now that lingering 
question lays  at my feet waiting for a response...



(sigh)  How well I remember when our house was broken into long-long  ago.  
They stole junk, but vandalized everything else, breaking china,  porcelain 
collections, tipping over the china cabinet and breaking a bushel of  glassware.  
(that's all that was left after sweeping up, a bushel of  glass.)
 
How long did it take to get over it?  I still have that carton of  shattered 
glass somewhere in the loft of the barn. I cannot bear to throw away  my 
Grandmother's Waterford goblets or my Hummel collection, even if it is  dust.
 
Kids. It was kids that did it.  Looking for stuff to sell for  drugs.  They 
took away the penny jug and the electronics, stuff I cared  nothing about. But, 
they destroyed memories of things I cherished.
 
They got two years in Juvie, since they were in their teens.  I am  sure they 
have been out a long time, now. I no longer live in that part of the  
country, but my daughter, who was traumatized at that time, keeps track of  them.  ( 
small rural communities, you know, where everyone knows  everyone.)
 
I am no longer furious.  I am more sad, that they tainted people's  trust in 
them for all the trouble they got into in those years.
 
I attended their trial. It was closed to the public, since they were  
juveniles, but back then, I worked for the county court system, and so my  presence 
in a courtroom was not out of the ordinary.  I hope they remember  my face 
well.  If you go to the hearing, do it not for revenge.  Do it  for knowledge, and 
your gut feeling that the crime fits the punishment.   One year for breaking 
your trust in people?  One year for them to learn and  rebuild?  College takes 
four for a person to gain knowledge in a  field.  How long will it take for 
them to learn their "lesson"?  If  you go to the hearing, you will face them, 
check if they smile slyly, and think  the whole thing is still a joke.
 
Did I ever get over it all?
 
Sort of.  

NancyLee