The New Wine Press vol 25 no 2 October 2016 | Page 10

PBMR neighbor praying at shrine

Death and Life Go On and On
by Fr. Denny Kinderman, c.pp.s., pbmr
It was hard getting up and facing the day. It was a
holiday, and yet I felt no sense of celebration. Instead I
sat for a while at our shrine to the Sorrowful Mother—
newly finished in the Precious Blood Center peace
garden. A small pieta rests atop flat stones with a flow
of water trickling a healing sound. It is a gift from the
Kansas City Province, built by Fr. Timothy Armbruster
and Companion Debbie Bolin.

Two days prior, as we were finishing the yard work
around the shrine, there stood Korry asking about our
appointment on Tuesday, the day after Labor Day. I had
previously helped Korry fill out an application for an
alternative high school, both of us aware he was beyond
age with too few credits to be accepted. He needed
help spelling many of the words as he filled it out. So
we planned to get together Tuesday to just find a way
for him now that he had finally decided to get his life
on track. Over the years he had been in and out of the
juvenile detention center and never got around to being serious about changing his unruly, at times violent,
lifestyle until recently. Now 19 years old and facing the
possibility of adult lock up, he asked for my help.
I was glad he remembered our Tuesday get together and felt sure he’d show up. Knowing him and
8 • The New Wine Press • October 2016

his family well, I had actually made arrangements for
Korry and was looking forward to seeing him. But he
would never see another Tuesday. That encounter was
the last time I saw him alive.
Sitting at the shrine hoping the next deep breath
would bring relief, I felt devastated. Korry wasn’t the
first of our youth killed by gunfire, and sadly won’t be
the last. I’m not sure why this particular loss hit me so
hard. Perhaps it was last night’s images still turning in
my mind—of the deeply saddened grandmother and
pain-stricken younger brothers, relatives and friends
at the county hospital when it was announced that he
had not survived. Then the distraught mother’s cry,
“My baby’s gone!”
Near the shrine my eye caught one of the two new
blue spruce trees planted a few weeks ago. It brought
some comfort. You see, these two trees have their
own story. Another youth I had worked with, whose
lifestyle like Korry’s was unruly and at times violent,
had been on the other side of a murder. Involved in
the death of a rival gang member, Lincoln—though
he had not committed the murder—was arrested and