DAY 63 - MICHAEL EVANS ROE

Last week while I was in Oakland, I took flowers to the Mountain View Cemetery where my brother Mike is buried. It’s a beautiful cemetery, nearly 250-acres of gorgeous rolling hillside, and over 150 years old – the oldest cemetery in Oakland.

   There’s a darling little flower shop on the road that leads to the cemetery, so I stopped. Every March they sell 4-leaf Clover plants, but didn’t have any this time of year, so I bought a pretty little bouquet and went to the cemetery. As I drove through the cemetery I noticed the headstones, new and old – the names, the dates, the tributes. Mike is buried under a tree, on the first row of the Infant Section – along with hundreds of other young children. These little child-size graves only 2-feet wide, and less than 4-feet long.

   Very few of these tiny graves are visited anymore. Most of these Young Ones died over 50 years ago. They never had any descendants, and by now very few of their parents are alive to visit them either.

Mike on one of Grandpa's Shetland Ponies

   I sat down on the grass, my legs tucked under me because the little rows are so close together. It’s been 10 years since I’ve been to Oakland, since I’ve been there – so I brushed the leaves away from the tiny headstone marking the tiny grave. I talked to him. At one point, when I was a teenager, I even wrote my Journal to him. I read the blogpost I wrote about him on his birthday to him. Tears streamed down my face for my brother – this brother I never knew. His life tragically cut too short.

   Today is 64-years since the day his life ended. Since the day a woman got behind the wheel of her car after having too much to drink. She sped through the neighborhood that day, and this little 4-year-old wearing a cowboy hat and shoes a little too big for him – well, I don’t even know if he saw it coming.

   Mom ran to the street. Neighbors gathered to help. One called for an ambulance. A couple of the men tried to administer First Aid. A few of the women held Mom back. Another drove Mom to the hospital as the ambulance drove away. Mike died in the ambulance on the way to the hospital.

From the Oakland Tribune, Nov 3, 1950
"A cowboy gun and a shoe lie in the curb
where they fell. Police Sgt. Don Heaton
holds the other things which marked
the last "round-up" for Michael Roe, age 4."

   And the Woman Driver – was never charged. It was 1950 – there were no breathalyzers, no blood alcohol tests. She was 51 years old when she killed my brother. There were no legal or financial consequences for her. Dad said she never even apologized – and I could tell from the way he said it that he thought that was the LEAST she should have done.

   But there are consequences in this life – and in the life to come. Decisions we make and lives we impact – we are accountable for our actions. Although this woman didn’t face any consequences in this life, I have no doubt that there are consequences for her on the other side. And she lived the rest of her life knowing that her actions had taken the life of a 4-year-old boy.