Last night is one I would rather forget ...

I was in my trundle bed, enjoying a good night's sleep, when there was an incessant pounding at my door that jarred me awake.  Stumbling out of bed, so as to get my slippers and my cane, I hobbled sleepily to the front hall and to the front door.  I opened it.  I was shocked to see a policeman staning on my front porch.

The policeman had a very serious look upon his face.  The expression on his face quickly sent pins and needles running up and down my spine.  My heart started pounding.  I knew that a policeman standing on one's front porch could never be good news.  Whatever he wanted couldn't be very encouaging.

"Are you Mrs.  Delken?" he inquired.

"Yes," I responded, fear gripping me like an icy cold hand.

"Well, I am Officer Chan, and I am here to inform you that your grandson, Michael Ray, was killed in a drive-by shooting.  Happened about three hours ago.  Downtown.  He was walking home from work when a car drove up.  A person inside that car pointed a gun out the window of the car and shot your grandson, point blank, in the face.  He died not long after.  He didn't suffer; it was quick.  We apprehended the suspects," the policeman explained.

At the news, I sank to my knees.  I was surprised to find myself screaming, "No! No! NO!!" and sobbing into my hands like a little girl.  I felt someone's hands on my shoulders.  The policeman had come in to try to console me, but I was beyond consoling.  My grandson was dead.  My world as I knew it came crashing down on me, like a thousand jagged pieces of glass.

The policeman helped me to a chair and let me cry.  He tried his best to console me, but I was way beyond that.  I was grief-stricken.  My grandson.  My beautiful, smart, handsome grandson was only 19 years old; he was working to put himself through college.  He had a future ahead of him and was thinking of going into the Marines.  Now thanks to somebody's stray bullet, my grandson was probably lying in a morgue, a white sheet covering his body.

I had to make funeral plans and have my husband call family and friends to inform them of what happened.  My husband was at work; he worked the graveyard shift aft the factory up the raod from where we lived, as a way of making more money for us.  Meanwhile, all I could do was sit there in shock and cry. 

I knew the hardest days lay ahead for me.  Not only me, but the entire family and those who knew (and loved) Michael Ray the best.

~To be continued.~