Boundaries

Yesterday I passed the site where a 13-year-old girl, Kelly Valentine, was killed while crossing Cedar Road in Chesapeake last week. Young teenagers held each other, wiped each other's tears, and had news cameras not more than two feet from there faces. The scene has nagged me for 24 hours now.
Don't get me wrong. I was trained as a news reporter. At Virginia Tech I would do anything to get ahead and impress my editor. I called the father of Mindy Summers, a girl who fell out of a dorm window and died. I called the roommate of a student who jumped off the back of Lane Stadium, rather than take his engineering final. I called the family of a boy who walked onto Rte 460, put his hands on his hips, and waited for a semi to smack slam into him, crushing both of his legs almost beyond repair. I called them hours after his first of many surgeries. While they were still standing vigil at the hospital.
I'm not proud, but I did it. Sometimes, those call are necessary. They're for the greater good. Unfortunately, Mr. Summers hung up on me. But the Lane Stadium story brought to light the stress of exams, and services the university provided students to cope. And the story of the kid on Rte 460 made people realize that college students face depression, anxiety, and very real stress. It was his second time attempting suicide. It put the signs of suicidal students in the minds of roomates, professors and parents.
Several years ago I wrote a story about Colin Stealey, a soccer star at Indian River who died when his car plowed into a tree and exploded. I went to the school from which I graduated, completely determined to keep the interviews professional. I tried to remember what I'd learned. Years of writing for a community paper had softened my hard edge.
But when faced with six grieving students and three choked-up coaches, I cried with them for an hour. My mascara ran. I couldn't finish my questions. I could feel their pain. I put down my list of questions, and we just talked. They talked about their grief. Their memories. Their healing.
The next day I got a call from my editor, asking me to grab my camera and run out to the accident site. Kids were gathering, creating a shrine. The mainsheet wanted pictures. They thought I could use my history with the kids to get close. At first, I was scrambling to find the correct lense, and matching shoes. And then I stopped. These were the same kids I'd cried with the day before. Their pain was raw. Real. Uncensored.
It was too close. I said I didn't feel it was right. He understood, and the mainsheet sent out some random photographer, who ended up being cussed at by a grieving 17-year-old. They still ran the shot of the teenages, huddling by the scorched tree. I think about them every time I drive past the now faded, tattered memories they laid at the site that day.
Watching the cameras surround those kids yesterday reminded me of just how motivated I once was to work at a large paper. The editor who had me call all those grieving families now works for the New York Times. He's ridiculously successful. And to be honest, every now and then I feel a twinge of jealously. That could have been me.
But yesterday I realized something. The Times doesn't write about the soccer star teenager. Or the waterboy who wants to play baseball like his big brother. Or the old man down the street with a story to tell. But those are the stories I want to write.
I want to write stories that make a difference. A few months ago I received a voicemail about a story I wrote seven years ago. It was a standard, 12-inch feature about a kid who played basketball. He wasn't a great student, and to be honest, I don't really even remember him. But he remembered me. And so did his mother.
She left the message to make sure I knew I had changed his life. He turned his grades around and sneaked into college. This May, he will graduate with a master's degree in education. The mother said the story was a turning point in this young man's life. He realized he was special. That he could be somebody.
I cried, and realized that I truly miss reporting. When Juni begins kindergarten this fall, I plan on calling the new editor at the Clipper (the Chesapeake city insert in the Virginian-Pilot), and ask the new editor if I can't wiggle my way back onto the correspondent list. At one time, I wrote more than any other of their correspondents. But once Juni came along, I faded into the background, and eventually disappeared. Writing is good for my soul. I need it like other people need air, water and food. It also gives me something. It gives me power.
But not the kind I once wanted. It's not the kind that comes with the New York Times. It's the kind that comes from a community paper. The kind that causes a mother to keep your phone number for seven years, leave a message, and make you cry.

Here's a link to the Colin Stealey story...
http://findarticles.com/p/news-articles/virginian-pilot-ledger-star-norfolk/mi_8014/is_20050306/indian-river-students-mourn-loss/ai_n41280655/