A real life account about what happens after a hand gun accident that kills a kindergartner.

::::::::

Beyond The Recoil

    It all happened  at an uncle's home. The two brothers were playing "good guy, bad guy" when they took time out to go in for a drink. The oldest brother, who was a second grader in my school, took his kindergarten brother into the bedroom and showed him a real gun, just where his uncle hid it.   Big brother pointed the gun, and it went off with a loud bang! Little brother was instantly dead. How do you get over a tragedy like this?  It is impossible.

    After the funeral, the brother came to school and existed in his classroom. I talked to him about his brother and it was not easy. Tears were hard to come by, while the instant of the accident was impossible to recollect. I wondered how the parents were doing and went by to see them.

    "We've never been stronger," the dad greeted me. "We are doing Bible studies and our marriage is stronger than ever. Our son's death has only strengthened us in all aspects," the father concluded.

    We struggled with our own death and found the going rougher the longer you lived. We felt the same would be true with their lives and marriage.

    Spring found us on the soccer field. The father had his own team with his son on it. I didn't have that much to do with him, but considered the parents as friends.  I was a certified referee and happened to be refing his game. There are so many calls in a game that it is easy to lose track of specific plays and calls.

    "That was a terrible call!" the father screamed as his team was leaving the field for half-time. The dad was angry but the game was still close. It was anyones game. "You are obviously calling for the other team. I have had it with you!" he shouted.

    I didn't say a word and just stared at him. I couldn't believe it, but then I thought through what this father had just experienced, I could easily channel his anger. He wasn't mad at me; he was mad at God because of a lost son. The father wasn't doing well at all, and I knew it.

    The son moved on out of my school, and I had nothing to do with him from then on. I often wondered how he was doing and how his family was holding up, but without kids in school, there was no way to know.

    Four  years later I was in my office when a teacher came down early in the morning.

    "Mr. Hill, we have a girl down in first grade that needs you. Can you come down as soon as possible?" 

    Needs me? It was the first of the school year and I found stranded kindergartners everywhere, but it was seldom that I had first graders who needed the counselor.

    Sure enough, when I reached the first grade we had a cute little first grade girl standing outside her classroom, refusing to go in. I had no idea who she was and only knew her by her first name.  I quickly grabbed her hand and said, "Come on with me. You don't have to go in the classroom. You can be in my classroom right now." The tears subsided as she struggled to keep up with me when I turned the corner and went into my office. There were desks out and tables set up and a place in the middle of the floor for toys.

    "This can be your classroom right now, until you are ready to go into your own classroom. I've got a puzzle for you to finish." The puzzle was made just for little first grade hands, and the first grader was soon finishing the puzzle.

    In about 45 minutes I took her back to her classroom.

    "Let's see what your class is doing and what your teacher is working on," I said as we slowly  made it to her room.  By the time we had arrived, the youngster was interested in what was going on in her classroom. We went in and sat down, " the first grader at her own table, and listened to the teacher as she explained the lesson.  Soon our first grader had joined in with her classmates to finish the lesson.

    Each morning we started out the day in the same way. the little  first grader would come to my room before we went to her classroom. On Friday, her mother brought her to school and met me in he hallway. I was dumbfounded.  I knew the mother, the father, and the older brother.  This was the sister of the little kindergartner that was shot by the gun. Now I knew why she didn't want to come to school.  The mother and I walked with the daughter to my office, where we talked about how things were going.  By the next week, the youngster was going into her classroom  like all he other first graders.

    Four years on down the line, we were running a part-time youth shelter at our house. Teenagers who were in trouble with the law, but didn't need the attention that a jail would give them, were sent to our  house. Marcella stayed home, while we had placements from the juvenile judge. We got a call about a boy who needed a place to stay while he readied himself for drug treatment. It was this older brother who we were asked to pick up at the sheriff's station.

    On the way to our house, the teenager opened up about his dad.

    "We don't get along. He has never gotten over the fact that I killed my brother. It was an accident, but he brings it up. Reliving it doesn't make me any more guilty. After the divorce, our family hasn't been the same, and I am blamed for the divorce as well." The youngster was going into some heavy drug treatment programming and could use all the support he could get.

    While he was at our house, his mother came out several times and talked to him on the front porch, while we sat down with Sissy and watched "Babe The Pig" and several other shows. Older brother regretted the trouble he had caused and was trying desperately to change his life. It would have been a big help if his father could have been part of the treatment plan. But the father did not show up at our house to support his son, while his son was with us. Maybe he was at some point later on, but ", he wasn't supportive then.  Sadly, gun deaths affect an entire family for years after the initial recoil of the weapon.

    Every year, there are approximately  500 deaths of children attributed to guns in United States' homes. Most of these guns were purchased to use as protection from home invasions or break-ins. This does not include hunting accidents or accidents with rifles used for hunting purposes. Every gradeschooler should learn about gun safety.  A universal handbook that would reward the user a certificate would do, but hand gun safety is important enough that it needs to be mandated for all elementary students before they get out of second grade. This gun accident happened in Anadarko, Oklahoma.

Authors Bio:
Is a 34 year retired educator with a Masters Degree in Counseling - a free-lance writer with articles in Spanish and English Guideposts, Mothering, Oklahoma Observer, Oklahoma Gazette, Westview, Oklahoma Reader, The Lookout, Christian Standard, opednews.com ... . The author has the largest number of published "letters" in the history of Time magazine and NEA Today. had an LTTE in NEWSWEEK in December, 2007. Dale W. Hill is married with 5 children, 7 grand-children, one foster child, and 4 foster grandchildren. He and his wife, Marcella, live in Lawton, Oklahoma; he retired from Anadarko Public Schools in 2002. Hill is a computer collector, writer, and musician. Hill is a historian of Country Music, with 1972 Ovation and Martin BackPacker guitars. Favorite diatonic harmonica is a Hohner Special 20 and all chromatics, that "...scream The Blues!!"