The recent murder of Robert Godwin displayed on Facebook live shook my soul, even the suicidal death of Aaron Hernandez made my stomach feel queasy. Death is unavoidable, but senseless murders and suicide can be prevented. To add insult to injury, Robert Godwin’s death was taped on social medial and shared countless times, Aaron Hernandez’s suicide prompted many people to make cruel jokes on Twitter and Facebook. Comments on his death were disrespectful like people forgot he had an impact on peoples’ lives. Aaron Hernandez was a criminal but his daughter he left behind was innocent. Social media can be a beautiful thing, but social media desensitizes us from tragedies especially death and violence. The problem with murder is, when a life is taken a human being just doesn’t die; their connection with the world is erased. They will no longer walk on this planet the same again. Life is beautiful and life is valued, but we don’t value life anymore; we mock life. Parading death on social media makes us just as evil as the heartless killer who killed.What is life? Life is more than a body. Life molds us and shapes us into who we are. When someone is killed, the person’s hopes, dreams, consciousness, thoughts, intelligence, feelings, emotions, their connections with others, their love, fears, doubts, insecurities, their personality, family, and friends are killed as well.

The memories associated with that person are tainted. We are all capable of murder. We have the power to take away and give life, but we also have the power to see the value in life. Where there is no value there is no life. Steve Stephens wanted to die, and he was angry, he took his resentment out on Mr. Godwin, like many other people do when they are angry. Because his own life was not valued by those he felt should have valued the most, Stephens justified his actions on another post on Facebook. What he did was not justified, he deserved to be punished to the full extent of the law but he didn’t deserve suicide. He was a coward and he was a lost soul, waiting to exit the world. We gave him what he wanted- attention. For a moment, Stephens had on purpose. Many people were actively searching for him, social media users plastered his face on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook which gave him satisfaction. Robert Godwin was forgotten by the public, but to his family, they will remember him forever, a gentleman who didn’t deserve his life to be taken. That video of his death degraded his value. What is the big picture? The big picture is our society does not know how to communicate we are unaware of those who scream for help.

We beat each other down every damn day then we ask ourselves why would someone randomly shoot people? Why did he kill his wife? Why did she kill her baby? Why did someone shoot up a school? We don’t pay attention to the little things, we don’t listen to silence. We don’t pay attention to each other. We don’t value life or respect others. We shit on people then we ask ourselves when did the world get so shitty. My grandmother used to say, “Back in the day we were grateful to make it to the next day, we would take it day by day, now we take it second by second. Here one minute gone the next.” I don’t want to live in constant fear that someone will shoot me randomly. I don’t want Robert Godwin’s memories to be replaced with the video that was on Facebook. I want everyone’s life to be valued to matter, but I live in the world where that isn’t in the case. One day I’ll be gone too, but I don’t want to die at the hands a person who doesn’t value life and I don’t want my death to be a spectacle.