I live in Wheaton, a suburb between Washington DC and Baltimore.

Baltimore, Maryland. That is right we call it Charm City. This week the city has not been so charming. We have seen the worst of some of the residents in Baltimore and there have been some bright spots too. There was a march with local pastors to calm the people down and encourage a peaceful conversation.

But one woman stands out in my mind. The woman being dubbed “Mother of the Year”. She was first seen on video, grabbing and “mamma bear”-slapping her black hoodie clad cub. You see, She saw him. In her words from a news interview, he made “eye contact’ with her. Though he was donning a ski mask, she knew it was her son hiding in the crowd of brick hurlers. There were a number of young people prepared to do battle. They came with bags of bricks and rocks to throw at the combined police force that had amassed after a few nights of unrest in Baltimore.

When the woman in Yellow(Ms. Graham) saw her son in this group, she took action immediately. She reach out and grabbed her son by the hood and started slapping him, yelling at him(though it is not audible), all the while removing him from the group. As I watched her, I understood her motivation.  The reason there was some unrest was due to the death of a man, Freddie Grey, in police custody. And in my mind, I realized she was protecting her son. She knew, with the amount of police, the chance of her son becoming another statistic was unbearable. I completely understood her motivation , fear, and rage, at  the thought of losing her son.

So it was with great interest I watched a blurry TV news interview with Ms Graham someone had video taped and then posted. She is a single mother of six children and she feared for her 16-year-old boy’s life. And then she said this, “There are times when I keep my son in.”

Think about that, sometimes she tries to keep her 16-year-old son in the house. The implication was that  he was safer inside the apartment than out on the streets with his friends. At that moment I immediately asked out loud , “where is his daddy?”

And the larger picture of life in Baltimore started to come into focus.  The answer to the question “why would a bunch of kids destroy their own community and possible opportunities? What did they have to gain? More importantly , what did they have to lose?

I commend Ms. Graham for keeping her child safe and alive. Especially because she has been doing it on her own. She is doing what she can. But I cannot imagine not having the great outdoors as an option for my teen-aged kids. Imagine a 16-year-old boy with time and nothing to lose. Imagine a 16-year-old boy with an able body and no father figure or positive male role models. Imagine a 16-year-old boy with nowhere to let off some steam. Imagine a 16-year-old boy with no safe place to explore his environment.

Now imagine predatory young men who are in gangs or equally hopeless or lack ambition. these young men become leaders and take the young men in who have no father and provide structure or activities. These activities may not be lawful or positive or fulfilling.

I do not have solutions, but I do see the problem is so much bigger. The problem stems from a breakdown of the family. The problem stems from young men with no ambition , no job, or nowhere to go after they are let out from school. The problem stems from not making critical thinking skills a more intricate part of the school curriculum.

To her credit, though Ms. Graham raised him alone, she raised him well. A boy his size could have easily taken her down. But he knew that was Momma and he showed her the respect of not raising a had back at her and in the end going home with her. That is huge.

This one woman gave me hope for the future.
However she gave me insight to a problem that is huge and needs much more attention and care. People need to care about kids, their education, their economic situation, and their well-being. At the same time we need to see how we can help super Moms like Ms Graham. How can we support and lift up these brave and awesome women who take what they have and do their very best?

For now, I will keep Ms. Graham and her family in my prayers.