Mood:
hug meTopic: "Fourteen Years Ago?"(5)
Desmond Vallean is a 5-foot-9, 178-pound running back for McEachern High School in Atlanta, not far from the Shire. Two weeks ago, he threw a crucial block on a defender in order to spring a teammate loose for a 75-yard touchdown run. Last week, he himself carried the ball for a 20 yard crucial first down which ensured an undefeated football season for he and his teammates. These events say a lot about a young man who has had a devastating knee injury in each of the past two seasons. Frodo stood up and took special notice neither because of these accomplishments nor because of the "dreads" that appear from under his helmet, rather it was what took place when Desmond was only two years old.
It was an early spring morning and Desmond's YMCA day-care teacher was reading a book to the classroom. Desmond's 4-month-old brother Brandon was in the enclosed nursery in the same building. His mother, Michelle, was next door in a work-related meeting. His father, Michael, a sheriff's deputy in the municipal courthouse five blocks down the street, was a first-responder to the explosion at the Oklahoma City Federal Building immediately across the street from the nursery. He found his son Desmond sprayed with shattered glass, but he was alive, and he carried him to safety. It would take him 40 more minutes to secure his entire family while he returned to the rubble which encased 168 dead, and 680 other injured victims of Timothy McVeigh and that band of scum.
For the longest time, Frodo had not thought about those kids in that nursery, and the ones in the Federal Building itself. Their loss and suffering resonated in all hearts and minds, more than fourteen years ago, when Desmond Vallean was only two years old. How fitting it is, thought Frodo, that such a magnificent young man was created from the refuse of the "twisted logic" that propels religion or ideology to purportedly excuse the actions of monsters.
Frodo's anger grows. He knows that it is the wrong response, but he can't help but remember the pictures of that fireman carrying a bloodied, broken, lifeless little body. Frodo's prayer this evening is that there are more like Desmond Vallean, and that good continues to prosper from evil. It is a daunting task, and it requires somebody who can throw a hell of a block for a teammate, or to garner a first down when the game is on the line.
