Coffin spray on the ironing board.

At first glance this photo looks like an ordinary Southern kitchen that any of my female relatives could be busy at work in. Planning meals. Cleaning up. Paying Bills. Then I saw the funeral flowers and read that the lady who lives in this house made it for the seventeen year old girl across the street who was killed because she got caught in a crossfire between her boyfriend (who shot up her neighbor’s door – why was she seeing a guy who was shooting up people’s doors?) and some other guys. This is wrong on so many levels. And the part that really works my nerves sometimes is that so much of it is let go.

Kids are getting shot up in Chicago, LA, and in this case, Birmingham. Sometimes they associate with the wrong folk. Sometimes they are just walking home or to school, minding their business, when they catch someone else’s bullet. It appears in the papers for a few weeks and then it is on to the next gory story.