In Lieu of Flowers for Henry

There’s probably not too very many that come by here these days who aren’t already fully aware of this situation, so feel free to skip the rest of this post if you’re a Nashville/etc/TN blogger or a KnoxBlabber. I’ve just been feeling somewhat frustrated and helpless for the past month, and especially now, that I couldn’t do more to help regarding this situation. There’s folks I know in Knoxville that have been up there busting their butts and hands-on helping – whether with food, helping get kids where they need to go, other stuff – and I wished several times the past month I hadn’t been on the complete other side of the state still, and could have maybe done at least something to help.

But now there’s something I can do, which is help spread the word about the scholarship fund being established in Henry Granju’s memory, and help spread Henry’s story so maybe it will help others not have to go through the horrors this family has gone through in the past five weeks or so.

Those of you who are parents (or even if you’re not) who aren’t already aware of this heartbreaking story… I’d like to introduce you to Knoxville blogger Katie Allison Granju & her wonderful son, Henry. I’ve watched Henry & his siblings grow up in photos & stories for about the last ten years in Knoxville-based forums that their mom and stepdad have been active in, as well as Katie’s blog. Their folks and I share several mutual friends in Knoxville; their stepfather (and father of the youngest sibling and one that’s due to be born in about a month), Jon, has been my “go-to” guy about various techy and WordPress questions on several occasions; and this family’s just plain good people.

So if you’re not already aware and haven’t been there before, I encourage you to visit Katie’s blog, and read a little. Or read a lot. If you go back to posts at the end of April and read forward, you’ll pretty much read Henry’s story in its entirety.

If Henry’s story saves even just one family & their child from a similar tragedy, that’s a blessing in the face of this terrible thing, and I encourage anyone to share it with others… especially your kids, if you have kids. If you read and think “Not MY kid”… I guarantee you his parents never thought something like this could happen to their kid, either. If you haven’t had “that talk” with your kids yet (or heck, even if you have), they’re probably really never too young or too old these days.

If you feel compelled to do more, the scholarship fund info is in the memorial service announcement in the June 1st entry on Katie’s blog.

I’m a pretty seasoned veteran when it comes to having witnessed firsthand how lives can be destroyed by stuff like this, but this has just been so terribly heartbreaking to watch happen, even for me. It’s just ripped my heart out these last several weeks and especially this weekend, when the worst news there could have been came. I don’t think I’ve ever been as shocked in my life as I was when the Facebook alert popped up with the news early Monday evening. The medical person that spent 25 years in healthcare knew this could happen… but I just never really once thought he wasn’t going to walk out of that hospital and go home, someday. Even when the long-term prognosis was looking pretty grim in itself, I just never thought at all it would turn for the worse like it did. Not when he’d made it as far as he had.

I’ve probably seen thousands of pictures of all of Katie’s kids in the past nine or ten years, and read millions of various anecdotes about them since 2000 or 2001 or whenever I first landed on the old forum the Knoxville weekly used to have. I’ve never met them – and now, sadly, will never meet Henry.

But I know one thing for sure about Henry – he was extremely, extremely well loved by virtually everyone ever that knew him. I bet I have heard and read a million times in the past decade what a sweet child, sweet boy, sweet young man he was, from hundreds of different people. And I know he fought so very hard to survive this horrific nightmare.

I’ve been so sad and heartbroken for Katie & Jon and their whole family, but my heart aches a bunch right now for the many friends of theirs up there in Knoxville that are in so much pain right now too, the ones that have been up there helping out and so many more, several of whom I’m acquainted with through the forums or elsewhere. I’ve seen people kicking themselves, right after Henry was hospitalized, who’d just seen him shortly before then and wished they’d talked to him about their own past problems, thinking maybe they could have made a difference. Things that have just been so very much even more heartbreaking. This has been such a terrible loss for so many.

I guess I would be remiss in not commenting on the fact that I’m pretty angry too, as the Knox County Sheriff’s Office basically sat on this investigation for over a month and only now – with Henry’s death, and a short article about the investigation hitting the local newspaper last night – does it seem to have suddenly have a fire lit under it. Katie wrote several days ago about having called to find out what was going on with the case, and basically being told nothing much had been done and there wasn’t a victim if Henry couldn’t be interviewed (which he couldn’t, due to his severe head injury).

Not only that, but the family had already provided them with names of witnesses AND the names of the assailants. And STILL they’d been more or less sitting on the case for over a month.

Pretty deplorable – and to me, not terribly smart, considering that the mother of the “non-victim” is not only well-known in Knoxville media, but a former employee of both the local daily newspaper AND one of the larger TV news stations. I can’t imagine that someone down there didn’t know that – or at least not been made aware of it by someone that did know. And I don’t think Katie ever tried to play that card – as far as I can tell, she didn’t want to bother them and hadn’t called KCSO until the recent call, when she was just incredulous to learn nothing much had been done.

But the whole “no victim because they can’t be interviewed” thing is definitely a significant misstep. (I’d have liked to have seen someone try to tell Gary Christian that his daughter wasn’t a victim, since she couldn’t be interviewed…? Come on.)

Anyway, whatever the case – whether you just read over at Katie’s place, whether you share Henry’s story with others and/or your kids, whether you decide you wanna do more, or even if you just hold on to some good thoughts for them all or say a prayer – thanks for keeping all these good folks in any thoughts & prayers (if you pray) that you have to spare. They could really use them right now.

(And if by chance Katie’s blog is down again – I think after the blog got linked by the New York Times reporter that wrote in May about Katie going public with Henry’s situation posted an update yesterday and after Heather (Dooce) Armstrong posted the link on Twitter, as well as some other links going everywhere on Tuesday, the bandwidth limit got overshot by a long shot and the site was suspended most of Tuesday, but the issues seem to have been resolved now – but anyway, in case it’s down again, here’s the memorial fund info from Katie’s blog, please feel free to pass it on):

Our family is starting what we hope will become a permanent, endowed fund that will provide scholarships for families who cannot afford to pay for needed drug and alcohol treatment programs for their children. In lieu of flowers, we ask that you remember our boy and his struggles by considering a donation to:

The Henry Louis Granju Memorial Scholarship Fund
c/o Administrator: James Anderson
Morgan Stanley Smith Barney
2000 Meridian Blvd.
Suite 290
Franklin, TN 37067

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