Now it has been a little over a week since our community experienced a real tragedy. This is text from the daily news who says it better than I can:
It was a Saturday evening. Eric was driving the 68 bus in Brooklyn which ends at prospect park. I was riding the bus with him. When we got to the park he noticed a group of people gathered and flowers all over the place. I was given the task to see what was going on.
The next day I went back to take a closer look at what was there. There were photos of his life cut short, candles, packs of Newports and a board with thoughts of people who visited this memorial. Next to the flowers was his skate board.
As hundreds of mourners bid farewell Tuesday to a Brooklyn teen who died mysteriously after a brawl, police arrested four people - including a 42-year-old father and his sons - for their role in the scuffle.
Friends and relatives packed a Cobble Hill funeral home to pay their respects to 17-year-old Sharif Abdallah, who collapsed and died after defending his friend against bullies in Prospect Park.
"People loved my son and were touched by this tragedy," the teen's grieving father, Tony, 48, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority general superintendent of support operations, said Tuesday night.
"I raised him for 17 years, wanted to mold him, shape him into a man," he said. "All of that took 17 years, and in all of two minutes they took him away. That's the most tragic thing."
Friends and relatives packed a Cobble Hill funeral home to pay their respects to 17-year-old Sharif Abdallah, who collapsed and died after defending his friend against bullies in Prospect Park.
"People loved my son and were touched by this tragedy," the teen's grieving father, Tony, 48, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority general superintendent of support operations, said Tuesday night.
"I raised him for 17 years, wanted to mold him, shape him into a man," he said. "All of that took 17 years, and in all of two minutes they took him away. That's the most tragic thing."
It was a Saturday evening. Eric was driving the 68 bus in Brooklyn which ends at prospect park. I was riding the bus with him. When we got to the park he noticed a group of people gathered and flowers all over the place. I was given the task to see what was going on.There at the entrance of the park was a makeshift memorial made in memory of this young person. He was only 17 years old. As a person with little children under my care, it really struck me how brutal this life can be. To Eric's surprise, I returned to the bus in tears. Not everyday in Brooklyn is wonderful. There are days when life is very harsh.
The next day I went back to take a closer look at what was there. There were photos of his life cut short, candles, packs of Newports and a board with thoughts of people who visited this memorial. Next to the flowers was his skate board.To be the parents of this child has to be very hard. The years of giving your life to your child in hopes that someday they will do well and add good things to the world that we live in freezes at that moment. Dreams are shattered. Love is paralyzed. One becomes numb with sadness and emptiness.
Many of the notes were from friends who will be changed forever by this event. Although for them it might become someday a distant memory, it will always hang in the back of ones mind releasing itself from time to time like an electric shock.
Like a flower that will eventually wither, so life eventually ends. These events need to warn us not to become so involved with life's demands that we forget to spend time with those that we love and Cherish. In a moments notice all can change and there is no retreat from death.
