Sometimes bad things happen

I went to see the pond on Sunday evening.

I've been there before, dozens of times, usually with a breakfast burrito, just sitting in the car, enveloped by the serenity, watching the joggers and the dog walkers and the ducks, appreciating the trees, wondering if it's Clovis' best candidate for a picture postcard.

But on Sunday night the trees were almost menacing. The ducks seemed on edge, even frightened. The pond, surrounded by a temporary fence and drained for safety, didn't seem like a little slice of heaven anymore. It seemed like it had no soul.

I saw some boys throwing rocks in its mud. I wondered if they were angry at the place. Maybe they were friends of Gevion Lewis, who lost his life because of that pond. They were too far away to talk with, and they didn't seem to be in a talking mood anyway. They were throwing the rocks hard. Or maybe I was reading too much into it. Boys throw rocks in ponds because that's what boys do.

Gevion was 12, almost 13, when he ventured into the water at Hillcrest Park on July 4 with his brother and some friends who live nearby. Maybe they were hot. Maybe they were bored. Maybe they wanted to see who could swim the fastest. Maybe they dared each other to see who could go out the farthest. Those are also the kinds of things boys do.

We all know what happened next. Gevion went underwater and he didn't come back. His friends tried to save him, but they couldn't pull him up. They called for help and first-responders arrived in minutes. They brought him to the surface, but only after he'd been under six ... eight ... 10 minutes. Maybe more.

Machines helped Gevion breathe for the next 11 days and we all prayed and hoped, but nothing helped. He turned 13 in a coma. His family let him go on Saturday night.

Most of us did not know the child before the accident, but we all know somebody just like him. Some of us used to be just like him. Or we have children just like him.

And so we have cried with his mom and his brother and the rest of his family.

If social media is any indication, some of us are angry about it all.

Why didn't somebody see those kids in the pond and tell them to get out? Why didn't the city have signs posted? Why had the sprinkler system been broken so long the water stagnated and became polluted? Where were those boys' parents?

We are demanding answers.

But it's important to remember, boys don't always pay attention to authority or to signs or even to their own instincts. And some of us believe a parent whose pre-teen son spends a hot summer day in a city park with his friends is probably doing something right, not wrong.

We will debate the pond's fate over the next few weeks and months. Some will say it should stay drained, or that it needs a permanent fence with monitored security cameras.

I know I'll never look at the place in the same way again.

But I also know that sometimes bad things happen for no reason, there's nothing you can do about them and it's nobody's fault.

I think one of God's greatest gifts is free will. It comes with responsibility, consequences and triumphs, heartache and jubilation. It's called life and it's great. Most of the time.

When tragedy happens, and it's nobody's fault, all we can do is cry, and pray. And it doesn't hurt to do what those boys were doing on Sunday night — get some rocks and throw them at that damn pond.

David Stevens is editor for Clovis Media Inc. Contact him at: [email protected]

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