When I first shared this story I was gutted. It was completely raw and honest. For nearly twenty years I held an enormous amount of trauma inside my little self. Then, I chose to let some of it out. Little by little, blog by blog, it was like opening a pressure release valve. Slowly decompressing all of the hurt and pain I was holding. Writing about it now feels so different than it did when I first started telling this story. I no longer feel stuck in October, no longer paralyzed by unresolved grief. I no longer feel as if my body - my soul - involuntarily braces itself for trauma. The crisp fall air, the smell of leaves and bonfires... all those beautiful, nostalgic reminders of fall, used to be nightmarish triggers that put my physical and emotional self on high alert, tragedy-ready. The grief that October held for my family has always had a sort of gravitational pull on me, and that one fateful night in October was how I marked time.
There was life before, and then there was after.
When I was invited to participate in a kindness challenge several Octobers ago, I agreed in hopes that I could use kindness as a way to externalize that grief. Never in a million years did I think that thousands of participants would ultimately join in spreading kindness in memory of a boy that very few had the privilege of knowing. I didn’t know that we would establish a scholarship fund (this year we will identify our first recipients!) What has surprised me the most, however, is that it would work. I genuinely did not believe that doing this work - the pouring out and the giving - would actually be the mechanism of my own healing. I was wrong.
Each year, I share the original version that I wrote, when I was in a hard, unhealed place. I tell the story of the night that changed everything. Each year I edit it a bit, and I try to change things a little… but the sad reality is that although that night changed everything… the story itself does not ever change. I cannot edit a better ending for Adam. It wouldn’t be honest, or real. So, here is that story, in all it’s hesitant and vulnerable glory, as I first shared it with the world. This year, however, I am aware that even though the end of Adam’s story has not changed, I have. This year I can share this story from a place of healing.
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I am going to tell you a story.
I haven't done this before, told this story, so detailed and so publicly. But, I am going to try something big this month, and I think I need to tell this story in order to do it well. So, here goes nothin’...
It was Halloween night many years ago, and my 17 year old brother, Adam H. Provencal, was driving home from the Regional Championship Soccer game. He was a senior in high school and the captain of the soccer team, and this victory was worth celebrating, and it was big news worth spreading for our small, West Michigan town. When my brother (and his friend Mike) were driving home, they passed some of their friends out playing some harmless Halloween pranks and it seemed the perfect time to spread the news. So Adam pulled the car over and began regaling the details of their night, of his team and their victory.
I have no idea what my brother was thinking or feeling in that moment but, my guess, is freedom. I imagine a boy - a sweet boy, crazy about sports, working so hard to maintain his 4.0 GPA in mostly advanced placement classes, editor-in-chief of the nationally recognized school paper, and all-around nice guy. And I imagine the pressure that that brings on a kid. I imagine him in this moment, and the hard work (for now) is done and has paid off with a regional championship. And he's free.
He is young and free, and he wants to tell his friends.
So, he pulls over and he and his friends are joking around, talking and hanging out. They are young and free and unburdened in this one, pure moment.
The whimsical, carefree youth of the moment ended when a homeowner came out and was irate to discover toilet paper in his trees and the saran wrap on his car. Though my brother had not been personally involved in executing these pranks, he had the car and perhaps that made him appear to be the ringleader. This man, carrying a canoe paddle, yelled and threatened to call the police, then took down my brother’s license plate number. I don't really know if that was why Adam felt the need to go to the door or not, but he did. He decided he would walk up to the home, to apologize for being there: wrong place, wrong time. He planned to clear his name and offer to clean up the yard, and to be certain… he no longer felt young and free. He was likely terrified that he was going to get in trouble. So, he dutifully walked up to the man's door and knocked twice.
The man did not open the door and hear him out, he did not yell at Adam to leave, he did not make good on his threat to call the police. When my 17 year old brother knocked on the door that night to have a hard conversation, he had a baby face and scrawny limbs and braces in his mouth. And when Adam knocked twice on that door, the man gave no warning before he pulled the trigger of his shotgun, sending one, single blast through the closed front door.
One bullet.
One bullet changed many lives, some lives even devastated. But only one life was ended. My only brother, my parents' only son, my hero, my friend... the only person strong enough to jump on a trampoline with me on his shoulders, and the boy who led me to a great faith adventure with Jesus, and taught me to dance like M.C. Hammer, and how to be funny enough to joke my way out of trouble. He was gone.
His murderer was in and out of jail after only two years. Two years. For a boy's life taken in a rage over a harmless prank. The senselessness of my brother’s death, the injustice, the lack of resolve… these are the things that haunted me each October. As I grew up and became a mother to my five beautiful children, I was no longer satisfied to keep all of my little girl grief locked away inside me. I needed to do something. I had to be productive and focus outward or I would implode with this seasonal grief and cyclical depression. I wanted to commit myself to honor all the good Adam would have done to the glory of God if he had been given that opportunity. Thousands of readers/listeners now participate each October in an initiative we call #AdamsActs, because these are the types of kind acts we believe Adam would have spent his life bestowing upon others had his life not been tragically cut short. I wanted to be just like him when I grew up. Well, here is my chance... 42 is just about as grown up as a girl can expect to be.
I cannot change the outcome of Adam’s story. I cannot edit out the pain or the deep grief of such a heartbreaking ending. But I am not powerless. I get to change the outcome of my own story. I get to choose how to respond to the greatest loss of my life. THAT is a story that I do get to write.
And If I can’t change Adam’s story, I might as well try to change the world. One act of kindness at a time.
I will admit that #AdamsActs has gotten smaller in the past few years. My capacity to put so much into it has changed. As I found more peace and healing, my life got fuller, work got busier and my kids got older. While this blog and my PODCAST are still available, I will mostly use social media to share moments of grace, kindness and mercy throughout this month. I guess what I’m trying to say is, the more healing I experience, the less grandiose I feel the acts of kindness in his memory need to be. My #AdamsAct for Day One is an invitation. I invite all of you to participate in random and intentional acts of kindness. If you feel inclined to share those special moments, you can use the hashtag #AdamsActs. There is also a scholarship fund in Adam’s memory that I would like to build up. This scholarship helps a talented and bright student athlete from Grand Haven High School go to college. This fund goes to a kid like Adam. I would *also* like to build an additional scholarship in his memory that goes to a kid that isn’t like Adam. This fund will help a student athlete from a marginalized community who does NOT have the same resources and privileges that Adam and I had growing up. This will go to the kind of kid whose differences Adam saw, honored and celebrated. We began this scholarship last year, and this spring we will award our first recipients! If you want to help contribute to the future of two remarkable recipients you can make a donation through Venmo: @AdamsActs or Cash App: $AdamsActs or send me a message at lara.capuano@gmail.com for alternative methods of donation. However, the greatest kindness you could possibly show to my family is sharing this with others to ensure that even after 30 years, Adam’s legacy of kindness and generosity in will live on, showing that even in the midst of tragedy, hope will always win.
To our buddy, our brother and my hero.
To hear more about Lara’s journey with grief, trauma, transracial adoption and life with five kids, you can follow her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lara.capuano, instagram @laracapuano, her podcast: Master of Fun, and because she is still young and cool, TikTok: @laracapuano
