Optimist at work
Mar 10, 2004

Quite literally. I am steadily feeling my optimistic self bouncing back to its regular position in things after having lived with 3 pessimists for so long. Not that I dislike pessimists, it's just that when you're living with 3 adult ones and you're the only optimist besides the kids...I'm sure you can see the problems that begin to crop up. So, my self-esteem is leaking back. The other literal part to the title is at work because I am! Yay! *does happy kitty dance* >^______^< nyao! I got a job as the afternoon receptionist for the Lakeview College of Nursing and so far it's been great. I'm so happy ^________^
I don't want to talk about the bad news here either actually...well, all the good news is here, my garden is making progress, I'm making progress, my son is making progress, my new niece was born Monday (Sarah) and she's a cutie and I got to see my Dad and step-mom over the weekend. We'll leave the bad news for another entry, if it even appears on here at all. I wrote it in my personal notebook (pen and paper) journal, I'm not sure if it needs repeated here yet. I'm sure it will get repeated here eventually though, this promises to be long for the weathering.

Perhaps I should just get it done and over with then? Here it is: My little brother has been arrested (again), but this time it's much more serious AND unfair. He was at a little party at some boat docks where one of his friends stabbed and killed another guy who was AWOL from the military (that's not the reason, but it certainly says if he'd been where he was supposed to be, he would still be alive). All of the witnesses say my brother had nothing to do with it, one has him pushing the guy (my brother, before hearing any of the stories says the guy fell into him and he pushed him away only to see him fall to the ground bleeding) to the ground, another has my brother punching him and the rest have him uninvolved. The girl that drove them there and back has been rearrested and a lot of the unarrested party-goers are saying that she instigated the whole thing (she's only 16 and apparently she knew the AWOL guy was gonna be there, she knew he and her boyfriend hated each other, she convinced my brother and her boyfriend--the guy who stabbed AWOL--to go to the boat docks party without telling them who was going to be there--basically, she was hoping to see an exciting fight). It took a few days for AWOL to die, so that's why she was arrested, let go for being a minor, and rearrested when he died.

My brother said he panicked when he saw the blood and he just wanted to leave, that's why he got back in the car with his friend and the girl who drove them there. The cops are charging my brother with exactly the same stuff as the kid who committed the murder, the family of AWOL, uncaring about the true story that's been all over the papers and the news thinks my brother should rot in jail (can't blame them for feeling that way). All of the news coverage has my brother doing absolutely nothing when they get to the story but his name is always mentioned first in the charges against them, all the exact same as the actual murderer's charges, I can see where this can be misleading about my brother's role.

AWOL's brother has threatened to kill mine and the murderer if they 'get away with it.' After the second hearing (the one after AWOL died) the brother said to the news that they needed to rot in jail because neither one of them showed any remorse for what they did. Does that mean I and a bunch of other people need to rot in jail too? I don't show any remorse for this dead kid, I didn't know him, it's sad that he died but when it comes down to it, I didn't know him, and neither did my brother, in fact, my brother didn't even know the AWOL's cousin whom the murderer didn't like which started the whole fight. So those of us who show no remorse because we didn't know the person should all rot in jail I guess. Besides, when I saw my brother last week, it was taking all his self-control not to cry and several times he almost lost.

That's what you get for hanging out with the wrong crowd, you become one of those people in jail for being at the wrong place at the wrong time and nothing more. The worst of it is that my brother was, other than occassional underage drinking (the only thing he was guilty of that night), trying to turn his life around when they arrested him. He finally got someone to give him a job three days before his arrest, he had gotten accepted for Pell Grant financial aid for the community college with plans to attend and start aiming for what he's always wanted to do (architecture). If he's convicted of this, he'll lose his whole life--a small price to pay for someone who's guilty but one who didn't do more than push a guy? He has 4 counts of 1st degree murder on him now and could go away for at least 50 years if he's convicted, he'll be 69 when he gets out, too old to have any kind of a life, too old to even hope for kids *shakes her head* all because he was hanging out with the wrong crowd--remember that if you are doing the same.

The really bad of it is that none of my family (discounting my aunt Mary whom we can't count on for anything--when my mom left her last abusive husband and sorely needed at least 10 dollars, maybe some old furniture, knowing the situation Mary told her to go back to the abusive husband, some full-blooded sister *rolls eyes*) can afford a lawyer for this kind of thing, so it all hinges on a public defender, a good one. Any PD worth half his/her salt should be able to get my brother away from the murder charges. Innocent until proven guilty...it still exists right? Or has it really just turned into a big game where the lives of innocent people hang to see who's better at the lawyer's trade of sly remarks withdrawn but still there, the public play on emotions and appearances. I hope my brother doesn't end up on probation, because with AWOL's family around and the cops breathing down his neck he'd be better off moving out with my Aunt and Uncle in Indiana (the offered), I don't think he'll find any peace in this town after this.

If I still have anyone's attention on this, I ask that you pray, meditate, or whatever your belief system regards as prayer and positive vibrations for my brother and any other kid that might or did end up in the wrong place at the wrong time because they were hanging with the wrong crowd. I don't think any of them realize how serious of trouble they can get into even if they didn't do it. There are two other murder charges, one recent and one past that happened in this city where the wrong place and time person was convicted, so don't think that you can never be convicted of something this serious that you didn't do. Take caution who you pick as friends. Please.