Do they know…

I wonder, do people sense when they’re going to die? Did Trevon Martin wake up that morning feeling something was off but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it? The people aboard the planes that crashed on September 11th, as they boarded the planes, was there a nagging sensation in their bodies that they couldn’t shake? Soldiers and civilians in all these damn useless wars, the morning they woke up on the day the bomb fell, or the bullet was shot, or the mine was detonated, did they know? As the black man explained, as he was, by law, required to do, that he had a firearm in the car – had he sensed the coming darkness earlier that day?

As the kid turned with the toy gun in his hand, the black woman knocked on the door to ask for help, the black man turned to run, the black person gasped for breath to plead with the officer; when the door on the black man’s apartment, on the black woman’s house, burst open to reveal an armed white person, were they surprised? Or had they been, on a subconscious level, expecting something final to happen.

I hope they found some peace before it was all said and done. I hope anyone, everyone, especially the children, who have died violently, at the hands of evil, I hope they were able in those last minutes, find peace. That the fear, pain, confusion faded before they died so they took their last breaths in calm and surrender. That they were able to pass away without struggle. I don’t know why that’s important to me but it is. Please (insert deity of choice here), let them have felt peace BEFORE their life slipped from their bodies.