Everywhere the Soles of Your Feet Shall Tread

By Stormy Dawn

Stormy Dawn asked her daughter to check on her brother in December 2009. It was going to be his last day of classes at community college until the spring term, and he hadnt come down for breakfast.

Her daughter told her that she needed to go upstairs, as her brotherNGHwas not in his room. But his computer was open and there was a note on it.

Thirty minutes later, shed discover son was dead. He had left behind several suicide notes.

Like many parents, she was left wondering why. One of his suicide notes read: Everything I have been through has turned me into a limp creature on its last breath. I tried in vain to heal these wounds. My cries for help became the twisted ravings of a madman. So I was feared as one, and that fear was the final crushing blow to my soul.

In this heartfelt account, the author explores how teachers, friends, and family members failed her son, and she also shares her other painful encounters with gun violence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Oct 14, 2016
• ISBN: 9781480838024

Stormy Dawn

Author and 33 year Nebraska resident Stormy Dawn has written about tragedies that have happened in her family. This book is part of a grieving process to deal with the loss of her two sons and grand daughter who each died of gun shot wounds to the head. Returning to college after 27 years, she obtained an Associate Degree in Architectural Drafting, a Bachelor of Science Degree in Organizational Communication, and is currently working toward a Master of Management Degree at Doane College. For two years she worked as an AmeriCorps volunteer for the Nebraska Supreme Court System and State Probation.

Book preview

Contents

Part One

NGH

Discrimination & Justice

Freewill and Predestination

Suicide and Martyrdom

Part Two

The murder’s of CAM and ASM

Genetic Theory

Restorative justice

Histories

Citations

Part One

NGH

Everyone in the house was up and moving, it was the 10th of December 2009 and the morning coffee was already made. This would have been the last day of classes at the community college until the spring term. I asked my daughter to see if NGH was awake because he hadn’t appeared downstairs yet for breakfast. When she came back, she said he was gone and that his laptop was opened on his bed and that I needed to go and look. We discovered 4 suicide notes and immediately, before reading them completely, became determined to find him. It was early twilight and a fresh snow had fallen the night before. NGH’s father followed his tracks into the grove of trees East of our house. The steps were long strides and a mark was left where the gun he carried met the snow.

NGH’s father was gone about 30 minutes before he returned to the back door, cracked it open and said NGH is dead. At the exact point the words entered my ears, a sharp and penetrating pain seared through the lower left area of my skull which worsened every time I took a breath. This pain continued for several days.

The most meaningful service I ever attended was the night after my son died when his older sister came and three of us marched single file in the darkness to the place NGH had taken his last breathe. We sang silent night with trembling voices as we walked into the darkness toward the wooded area of NGH’s departure.

Burnt into my memory, at 8:30 PM the night before NGH died, we met in the kitchen in front of the sink. I was tired and making my way toward the bathroom when he stopped me. Without a word, he offered me a hug-the warmest hug I had ever gotten- without any knowledge that it would be the last.

NGH had 4 gaming friends, B., C., T., W. His 2 college friends, were C. and G. His on line girlfriend was L. and J. who he had known in grade school that called himself King of the World on his Face Book account. Last of all was the boy who had pursued NGH’s sister for over a year, R., who was not a friend but who had attached himself to NGH the last few weeks of his life.

The first memories I have of any difficulties that NGH had were at Loup City when he was 10 years old. At the teacher conferences I was told how disorganized my son was. I remember telling the teacher that I, as his role model, was not any better. I think she wanted me to agree with her, not explain why he was disorganized. There were complaints that he was not getting his work done and after these initial complaints, he improved. It was this same year that he became uncomfortable with going into the boys bathroom at the school and would often avoid the bathroom all day and hurry to the toilet when he got home. There was a complaint which I minimized from both of my young children. It was about showering after PE. I thought it was ridiculous to have young children undressing in front of each other because of exercising an hour. Today, I realize that this is where some of the roots of discrimination and bullying began. The spring of 2002, NGH wore a purple button up the front shirt to school, he never wore that color again because someone called him gay and apparently threatened him. After NGH’s death, I found messages from the King of the World that reminded him how he had protected my son in grade school. My son openly spoke with me about many things. The fall of 2005, he attended a shop class and built a cabinet which cost us $100 for the materials. He wanted very much to do a good job and apparently asked the instructor for too much help. He was a sophomore and most of the students were juniors and seniors. One day, the instructor left the room and the other students threatened to tie my son up in the closet with electrical wire. I believe the instructor encouraged this behavior from these older students because he was frustrated by my son’s asking for help on his project. I minimized what happened to him and never reported it. It was this same year that some high school boys were arrested for killing several deer, leaving the carcasses along the road side, apparently for the sport of killing. We never knew who these boys were but Federal monies came into our county to address the problems of teenage drinking shortly afterwards. I believe it was this same group of boys that became the reason for the the County Prevention program getting Federal funding. These boys were also enabled by privacy laws to continue their brand of intimidation. I do not approve of the privacy laws. When I was young, if kids vandalized something, the next day their names appeared in the newspaper.

December 2003, we took NGH for an evaluation at the Silvan Learning Center in Kearney. They had a sale that cost $100 and I thought it might help him to adjust to the school system. The Silvan Center was very positive and it reminded me of what I had known many years before, that the alternative learning developed by Montessori was beneficial for students that were not within the margins of what was called normal. The evaluation they gave NGH showed an auditory processing problem. NGH had an IQ of 129 and he had compensated very well to his learning disability. They asked NGH to read a story and tell the instructor what he had read, at this he was at an 11th-12th grade level while actually in the 7th grade. When NGH was asked to repeat a story that had been read to him, he was at a 2nd or 3rd grade level. How the school dealt with his situation, I understand as irresponsible. They sent NGH to the state funded ESU center in Kearney for diagnosing disabilities. They gave him a hearing test and said his hearing was average. I tried to explain what the Silvan Center told me and after they avoided my messages, I pursued and finally met with a woman from the ESU face to face and she minimized my message. Later I spoke with the principal of the school about this error and he asked me if I realized that the Silvan Center was a competitor to the public school system. My perspective was about my son’s difficulties adjusting to their school. Their perspective was about money and competition. This was how the school system failed my son.

NGH had never been violent or disobedient or objecting to authority, none of my children were. My son had gotten into a conflict getting onto the bus one day because a boy called him gay. Apparently this word was meant to be derogatory at his school. NGH swatted his hat onto the ground and the boy knocked him down. Both were taken to the principals office and held equally responsible. After the dispute was settled through suspension of classes, the boys became friends. This new friend had his own set of problems. His mother had an addiction and the grandmother took B. and his sister into her home, allowing the state to help pay for their care. I encouraged this friendship because NGH was having difficulties making friends at this school. One boy he had been friends with as a child was put into a Christian school, it is sad when I realize today how important that friendship might have been for my son’s adjustment to school. NGH failed to realize that our house rules did not extend to the school system. Every time he saw disrespect for authority, he believed an error was taking place and he tried to defend the non violent culture. He was confused by the violent norm of the school which contrasted with what he had leaned at home.

During the year of 2006, NGH’s English teacher would not accept a book he read as part of a required quota for the accelerated reading program. She said it was too advanced for him to use. He argued this point and she docked him, claiming he did not do the required work. All of this was leading my son to feel unfair treatment and he was often at a disadvantage when communicating face to face with people. I encouraged him to write what he wanted to express and he did.

NGH was a sensitive and intelligent person. When his father went into treatment for alcoholism the fall of 2006, we went to Colorado for a few days. There was a new law just passed that gave the school authority to suspend students over days missed. I did not understand this and when we returned, we were sent a suspension in the mail. In the midst of all these difficulties, I decided to home school my son. When I announced this decision to my children, NGH was happy and his sister (who had always been the teacher’s pet) said to me why can’t I be home schooled also? November 2006, we became a home schooled family. A few months later, I was incensed when I got a letter in the mail asking me to sign so that the public school could have the state lunch benefits for each of them even though they no longer attended. This was a benefit of $20,000 for the year, which was 4X’s more money than our entire family spent for the year on food.

NGH’s sister conducted her own social experiments at a young age when she noticed that the popular girls all sat at the same table and others were not welcomed there. On one occasion, she lead a group of outsiders, including her brother, and they came in early and sat at the designated table. This is the kind of challenging behaviors that my children were brought up thinking were good. His sister had a math teacher who often became angry and turned red while yelling at everyone in class. One day, NGH’s sister burst into tears when her math teacher directed his emotional response toward her. She was not used to having anyone speak with her in such a way. The other kids in the class gave her praise when they left that day because she challenged his emotional response with her own-and it was sincere. I thought that her tears may have been part of some story put upon our family, I had rarely ever seen either of my children display raw emotions as appeared at their school. Debating issues was common in our home, name calling and disrespect for authority was not common.

In September 2007, I began working for the Nebraska Supreme Court System with State Probation. This grant position was the first time AmeriCorps piloted a program with state government. My job was helping people on probation to deal with education and employment obstacles through small group discussions.

We home schooled between January 2007 and January 2008 when NGH entered the early entry program at the community college. He had his first job as engineer at the local Park driving the small train in 2007 and he continued as train engineer during summer 2008. He did well there and his sister joined him at community college the fall of 2008. She flourished socially whilst he struggled and I became worried about her being so young amongst the other students. She began at age 16 and he had started just before his 17th birthday. Because of my fear, I took her out until the the next fall of 2009, missing one term. She joined a theater group the summer of 2009 and also took a psychology class. It was her psychology book that was opened next to NGH’s lap top with his suicide notes. The maturity level of the students matched NGH much better than high school had. Summer of 2008, we went to Arizona so that NGH could attend a Frank Lloyd Wright Architecture camp for one week.

Fall 2007 there was a dance in the town south of us and they both wanted to go to socialize. NGH saw a young girl who he had met at the swimming pool before he began Kindergarten in 1996. He remembered several kids in his kindergarten class making fun of her name and wanted to protect her. He had empathy for this girl. The word Gross has many meanings but none are very pleasant. Summer 2008, he got his first lap top and while we were in Arizona, he sent this girl a message that was very heart felt, offering much more sensitivity than people from this community were used to. What came back at him was very hostile and treatment he was not used to from a little fellow who was proud of shooting ducks. He called himself her boyfriend and also labeled my son with the word stalker. It was an entirely bizarre defensive tactic done by A., who was this little duck hunting fellow from Wood River. It turns out that NGH spoke often to a girl he detasseling with for two summers and she happened to have a younger sibling who was physically disabled. Her mother was a high school friend to NGH’s aunt in Lincoln, however, we did not know these things until after his death. She was a friend to the girl he had known in Kindergarten and she encouraged NGH to write letters to his childhood classmate. Perhaps this was a joke, if so, he never had to endure their laughter or perhaps their laughter was part of the reason he made his decision. A campaign was waged against my son by a group of wanna bee tough guys who were good at expressing threats. These little fellows caused a painful situation for him that continued right up until the day he died. Later that fall, this girl was working at the local grocery store and carried our groceries out to the car. NGH’s father noticed that she acted interested in him but NGH had already been threatened by the little duck hunting fellow and ignored her attention.

The summer of 2008, we traveled to Albuquerque for his sister to attend an acting workshop and for him to spend the second summer at an architectural camp in Scottsdale Arizona. This was a good trip that we all enjoyed and we were gone about three weeks. When he went back to his job at the park, he complained that some very large Mexican guy was giving him angry looks. NGH was told that he forgot to grease the track at the end of the 2008 season and it apparently derailed. I think the older man who worked as engineer expressed anger toward NGH about this derailment. It is difficult to know if it was actually an error NGH made or if he was a scapegoat. I remember the day I came to pick him up, his last day working at the Park. He called me several times asking where I was at. I needed to stay a few minutes late at work and he had gotten off early because of the problem I spoke of. When I drove up, he was sitting against a tree and