‘Product of ones environment’, ‘A idol mind is the devils workshop’, ‘A child learns & lives what they see’, and ‘It takes a village to raise a child’. All are an ole saying that holds truer, than true truths. A Childs’ idol mind that hungers & thirst for knowledge that lives in an environment of abuse; emotional and bodily harm and other unspeakable crimes. That their mind eyes lay witness to daily will become the workshop of the devil and an unfavorable product of their environment. When the mentors (some not all) within their village are themselves abusers, career criminal and worse, products of their (self made) environment set this unhealthy, destructive of self example. The child will be raised & act in like manner.

Thus were and are the boys that viciously attacked AJ. Because he rode his bike to a friends house a few blocks from the housing project he was attacked. Some of the boys including AJ didn’t live in the housing project, but all lived in the same neighborhood. The leader (age range 14-8 yrs of these boys) of this hate filled gang lives not less than a block from AJ, in lets just say the better part of the worse part of town.

Not to get me wrong, there have been many very successful people that have lived in such places and have not let themselves become a product of their environment. There have been people in the greatest of neighborhoods with the most up right strong Christian parents and their children have gone wayward.

May 4^th, 2008, was the date when not just a (10 year old) AJ, but his whole family lives were changed and has left a deep wound in all of our hearts and mind. It can never be erased, or forgotten, (but can be forgiven) least of all by AJ and this mother as she daily, each moment of each day anguished in seeing her sons Pangs of chronic Pain, and watched as him totally change into another person. The AJ had a deep desire to play sports; Football, Baseball and Soccer, he loved music, held a great hunger to play the drums. He had just begun drum lessons that same year. AJ loved the outdoors, to help anyway he could, his friends were countless. Now he has no one friend, who wants to hang with a kid that can’t play? AJ went from a full well rounded life to absolutely nothing.

These boys all knew the devastation of their actions, when they set out to attack AJ. “My head hurts” has become the only words that seem to come out of his mouth. Even more countless emergency room visits, and hospitalizations in Children's Hospital and Health System of Wisconsin as well as a brow raising amounts of prescription medication including Zoloft for depression. Having to see countless doctors in two different states 50-60 miles apart his mother doesn’t transportation, she has had to take a cab someday to his appointments. While these boys could still run and play, and have fun like most children their age. Not so with AJ, who no longer can do the norm for his age or any age.

AJ can not:

· Play of ANY kind, i.e. sports, swim, run, ride a bike

· Walk (though he tried, he is very unbalanced)

· Remember a great deal of things:

· Concentrate

· Focus (has blurred or double vision at time)

· Comprehend

AJ use to love to go to church, school (missing an alarming amount of school, unable to do the work.) and the movies they had become places that caused overwhelming pain on 10 different levels. Depression overshadowing as with sleepless nights, pain medication was useless. His attitude had changed; he was becoming very irritable with everyone. His vocabulary was; “My Head hurts”, “I can’t do anything”, “I wish I could just die, so my head would stop hurting”. I can’t state in words the heartache it is to all of us to hear this young child say such words. I watch this first grandchild come into this world, first to hold him and to hear he that wants to die. And not being able to relieve him of his endless pain, I felt and feel helpless and a failure as a grandparent. In raising my children I tried to prepare them, just did not think to prepare them for this.

His mother works two jobs, both she is in jeopardy of losing; she receives no finical assistance from governmental agencies. This as also taking its toll on AJ’s little sister (7 yrs) who can not understand why he can’t run and play with her like he use to, she keeps asking why does his head hurt all the time.

As I compile this AJ is in the hospital now. AJ is in surgery having a shunt put it. The pictures are of him in his hospital bed at Children's Hospital and Health System of Wisconsin. The damage this has caused is Hydrocephalus: fluid on the brain. He was put on a monitor to check pressure in the brain.

Crime is so very high, but crimes on a child by another child are even higher. We as the neighboring parts of unfavorable villages need to step down from our safe well rounded city, and towns come into these areas, teach our children to not let their environment overcome them, but overcome the environment and its elements.