Perception and Truth
What is the true distance
between perception and truth? I have had
many conversations with people that I was attempting to explain something and
the other person would say “yeah I know what you mean”. Then they would give an
example of theirs to prove that they understood what I was saying and it was
not even close to the point I was trying to prove. I look at them like did you
hear a word I said or are you just so wrapped up in your example/answer that
you can not wait for me to shut up to share it. Sometimes I will even go as far
as trying to make what I really meant more clearly. I look at their eyes and
you can see that they are already thinking of the next answer/example to give
in return. I am sure that I am just a guilty or worse as the next guy at doing
this very thing. Loading my answer before the other person has a chance to
finish the complete thought. Pending on the setting and person I will attempt
to make point clear even after multiple failures. Sometimes I feel that I must
be speaking a completely different language.
It makes me wonder how watered down the truth really gets in the
newspapers, Television news, or any other situation that involves one person
explaining something they had no part of and sometimes could not understand
themselves.
Writing this reminds me one
the time a 17-year-old kid was shot and killed across the street from my house.
It was crazy to stand and see all the confusion going around. Whose life was
senselessly taken? Why was it taken? Would I ever know why? How close did I
come to that happening to me? How many times was I that close?
I first noticed something was
going on with the flashes of red was painting the room I just left five minutes
prior. An ambulance pulled up and they went behind a red car parked in front of
the house. On of the paramedics slowly walked back to the ambulance with no
sense of urgency and grabbed a white blanket and walked back to the car and
covered something. The neighbors stood around speculating who, what and when
everything happened with great confusion. Was it the young man that lived at
the house that has recently been a slight nuisance to the area?
When friends and family
started to show up the confusion and pain intensified. Then a small pickup
truck pulled up to the flashing red light and confusion. An older gentleman
came out and the intensity skyrocketed as he shouted hysterically about his
time he spent in the military and specifically
The surreal atmosphere
continued to be thick with pain and confusion. The flashing blood red lights
painting the blackness of the night like a beacon of pain. The family held the
sobbing father back. Time slowly passed with each tear that they spent in front
of people they have never met. The vision of this being my own family becomes
more real as each moment passes. In all the sadness and loss, I am grateful for
luck being on my side to this date.
What makes my luck even more
relevant to this young child loosing his life was the fact that I was just
standing in front of the curtain-less window. I could not see out of the
window, but you could definitely see in the window. If I wouldn’t have had an
unexpected urge to use the restroom at that moment, I would have been standing
directly in the window but could not have seen what happened. They would have
been able to see me though. I could only imagine what could have happened if I
was there and they thought I saw what happened and who did it. They killed one
why not two? I never heard a thing. I had the radio on in one of the back rooms
while I was working on the house. When I went to the restroom the radio was in
the room directly across from where I was.
In all the pain I reflected
back on that and felt relief that luck touched me. Then I would her the loud moans and sobbing from the family and my relief
was stopped back to sorrow for this family.
Eventually the body was loaded in the ambulance and driven away, the family left and the red lights stopped screaming
for attention.
The reason this story came to
mind is the news covered the story and said it was a botched robbery were they
got away with a small amount of money and a pack of cigarettes. My stepdaughter
went to school the following Monday and found out the real story. The young man
that lost his life had turned in two brothers to the police for stealing cars.
They were released from jail that day and took revenge on this young man. What
makes the story even more saddening a buddy of his called him for a favor to
take him to the house across the street from my house. The young man really did
not want to but was talked into doing it with the condition that he was not
staying he would just drop him off there. What he did not know was the two
brothers were following him in another car. Once he arrive
his buddy ordered him out of the car and when he refused his buddy pulled a gun
on him and demanded that he get out. He complied. He got out and stood up and
one of the two brothers put a shotgun in his chest and pulled the trigger and
then ran.
To my knowledge the news or
newspaper never released the true story. I asked my stepdaughter if the family
knew the true story and if not that someone should tell them. The thought of
him dying for small change and a pack of cigarettes over what really happened
that he did the right thing and turned them in is a huge difference. Not that
it would have made the pain less. Maybe it would have been easier to the
parents that they raised their son right and he died doing the right thing not
being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
After reliving this night in
my head, I think of the importance of the truth being relayed and heard, not
the perception of what one thinks happened or the perception of how they
interpret the information that was provided to them.
Written by Lanis Johnson