On December 12, 2019, my son was on his way home from a restaurant, not four blocks from home. It was 9:20 p.m. and he had a 10:00 p.m. curfew. He was walking down the street with a friend when a car drove down the street, approached him at the corner of 43rd and Market, rolled down the window, and shot him. My son never knew what hit him; he never regained consciousness. He was the last homicide of that year in Louisville, Kentucky.
My son was a great kid. My son was no gang member or ever in trouble with the law. He was a high school graduate with a full-time job. He respected his parents and loved every one he came into contact with. He would have given you the shirt off his back and had done that. My son wanted to live off grid; he was working to save up to move to Alaska and be free. He had no children because he believed in working to make a life for yourself so that you can then support children. He had just turned 19 on Thanksgiving that year. Three weeks into his 19th birthday and 6 days before Christmas we lost a piece of our soul with no understanding of why. We lost our smile when we lost him, and we have not smiled since. The world doesn’t rotate the way it did the day before he died. It feels like it’s just sitting still.
It took the police 16 months before they arrested someone in the murder of my son. My husband and I still don’t understand how we outlived our child.
In 2021, a year and half after Christian was killed, my daughter, Victoria Gwynn, was shot at a public park. They were just sitting at the park, enjoying a sunny day. Over 300 rounds! She survived her wounds; her friend did not.
