Time
Time, young people think nothing of it because they know they have many years ahead of them, older people reminisce about past experiences and how they would change some things that they done, like getting married younger, having more children, telling her I loved her sooner. Younger people they don't understand how precious time really is hanging out with friends in rough parts of town smoking and doing drugs, not giving in homework on time, getting in trouble with teachers, arguing with parents, but teenagers they really don't give a damn because to them they have years ahead of them to make things right.
I wonder that maybe if they realised how easy you can lose everything they'd change their ways. I wish they could see what we encounter everyday maybe it may change their outlook on life or come to realise what it must be like for the people around them, what they're going through because of their behaviour. Perhaps they'd take responsibility for the way they are living and what can happen if they don't, because.
I see a lot of this, but it never gets any easier cause no matter how much you try to distance yourself from all your cases, ones involving children make you think that in a few years' time your children will be the same age you can't help but relate and imagine what it would be like if it was you who had an FBI agent standing at your front door. It fills you with sadness and empathy.
As I'm sitting in a home that was once inhabited by two children, having to tell their parents that their little 16 year old daughter and 19 year old son will never be returning home to their family home, Having to watch the colour drain from their faces desperately holding onto one another as if to draw strength from the other. What's worse is when they ask the first dreaded question 'How did it happen?' you have to tell the truth, that's one of the things they look at you to give them, the truth.
So taking a deep breath sand you try and distance yourself and act like it's just any other case you tell them that they were found dead and its believed that it was caused by an opposing gang in a fight over something petty. A gang their parents never knew they were a part of, you see their mother looking around hopelessly expecting them to come running from upstairs because that's not her type of children being in gangs and causing trouble, you can tell that for the slightest of moments she forgets about it all and thinks it's a normal day until her gaze falls back to me, the agent sitting in her living room and reality sets in.
You watch their father whose knuckles have turned white from the grip he's had on the sofa posture shift to the look of utter despair, deflated even and as he looks at you with lifeless eyes he asks. 'Why did it happen to our kids?' Of course they know no-one can answer them, don't expect one even. They just asked to try and not think about a well-known fact. A parent should never outlive their children and your thinking that as well but you can't tell them that, their world has been shattered enough they don't need you agreeing with them.
Seeing this type of thing every day, having to tell countless families their loved ones won't be returning it does make you aware of how precious life really is, looking back as your leaving you see their mother with her face buried in her husband's neck her body wracked by uncontrollable sobs and their father shaking trying his very best to stay strong but failing as he looks to the father day cards left unopened on the coffee table. You notice a girl's hairbrush by the kitchen table, a coat hung neatly on the banister. A boys pair of muddy football boots thrown untidily on the mat by the front door, coming to the realisation that the boots, hairbrush and jacket will never be used again it saddens you. Makes you more determined to catch whoever is responsible. Makes you more determined not to live your life wasting time that can never be reclaimed.