How Ponce de León Had it Wrong

Last week, I was forwarded a link to a fairly fascinating video on Youtube. It was a moving Japanese video, with subtitles, about a dog. The video itself was good enough, but one of the phrases in the subtitles has stuck with me well beyond the context of the video itself -

"Why am I always a child?"


For the last 6+ years, I have had a similar thought running through my head with respect to my late brother. I've never been able to put it so eloquently, but the subtitle in that piece nailed it. That's how I feel most robbed by my brother's death.

When that drunk plowed into the car he was riding in, he not only took the life that my brother had at the time, but any life he would have in the future. If that sounds confusing to you, believe me, it's much worse for me. You see, in our minds now, he will always be 20 years old. We have no frame of reference as to what he might have become, and that makes me feel cheated. His image will never change. In a sense, he will always be a child. We will never have known him otherwise, and can't even begin to guess what he would have been like at 25 or 40.

When standing in front of the court at his sentencing, the man responsible for my brother's (and the 7 other young men's) deaths, he asked all of the families for forgiveness. The sheer enormity of the consequences of his actions is what makes it absolutely impossible for me to forgive him. Eight would-be men will always be children. Forever.