We've All
Got to Know People
But whoso shall offend one of these
little ones
which believe in me,
it were better for him
that
a millstone were
hanged about his neck,
and that he were
drowned in the depth of the sea.
—
Matthew 18:6
I have this really great Italian
friend who represents her ethnicity so well, when she walks by one of those
famous Italian paintings in a museum, they wink and give a thumb's up.
She was shocked recently when she
got a copy of a book that lists the names of Mafia members around the country,
and saw a name she knew:
"Uncle
Sparky?!?!?!?!"
He was a close family friend when
she was growing up, in another state. One time, a car drove up to their house,
and there was Uncle Sparky, laying across the back seat. Sick? Taking a nap?
They brought Uncle Sparky inside, and he stayed with them for a while.
Years later, the light dawned. He
must've been shot or on the lam.
She thought she knew him . . . but
she didn't.
I've been mulling this over because
last week, two young women's lives went on completely different tracks before
my eyes, and a mother's action might have made the difference.
I opened my paper to see another
Italian face - a young woman who grew up in our neighborhood, and was now a
beautiful bride. I smiled thankfully, because I knew what might have been.
It has something to do with this: in
another part of the paper, there was a mugshot of another young woman, just
about her age, a teacher, who was alleged to have become sexually involved with
a 13-year-old boy, her former student, and fled with him down to Mexico.
That young woman now is facing
federal charges of crossing state lines to have sex with a minor and a possible
sentence of 10 years to life in prison, plus a $250,000 fine. There had been
rumors about an illicit relationship between teacher and student for a long
time. Nobody could believe that the teacher's family and coworkers didn't put a
stop to it before it came to this.
So we have the beautiful bride, and
the accused sex criminal. Here's how their stories intersect:
When the bride was in about seventh
grade, she was in a class with the daughter of a friend of mine. The teacher
was one of those people the kids call "creepers." They make you feel creepy.
This teacher-creeper was apparently
semi-molesting certain girls in that classroom. He'd let his hand rest just a
little too long on their shoulders, or stroke down their arms. Girls that age
are so sensitive about what's happening with their bodies. It must have been
horrible.
Well, one of the girls told her
mother -- a fiery Italian. She buzzed right over to that school, burst into his
classroom where he was seated at his desk, towered over him, stuck her face
right in front of his, and said:
"You keep your hands off my daughter
and all the other kids. If you don't . . .
"I'M ITALIAN. I . . . KNOW PEOPLE."
(You know: someone like "Uncle
Sparky.")
She then marched to the school
office. Next thing anybody knew, there was a videocamera trained on that
teacher full-time. Eventually, he wasn't teaching any more.
The moral of the story is this: it
was HER daughter who was the radiant bride in the paper.
That girl might have become a crime
victim, a statistic. But her mother got in there and protected her. Compare her
self-concept now, and her future, to that other young woman's, and the
13-year-old boy's. He is reportedly an illegal immigrant, and his parents weren't
living together. His home life was shaky, and he'd spent time in reform school.
Who knows how different things might
have been for him, if someone had gotten in that female teacher's face, and
intervened on his behalf?
I can't get over the "coincidence"
of those two photos in the paper. It's a message, that's for sure.
We've got to stop tut-tutting about
sexual perversions, and get in there and act to prevent harm when we can. We've
got to acknowledge sinful human nature; sin can happen to anyone. We've got to
protect kids.
We've
ALL got to act like fiery, protective Italian mothers . . . who "know" people. †
