R3 Contributor
In the early morning hours of December 1, America
learned that another young African American child had been left behind, this
time without having ever entered a classroom.
Three month old Zoey became an orphan when her father, National Football
League Kansas City Chief’s linebacker Jovan Belcher killed the infant’s mother
(his girlfriend) topping off this carnage by taking his own life less than an
hour later.
Nationally, football fans
and even nonfans havoeye remained riveted and been sated with the salacious
details of this macabre murder/suicide. Unsurprisingly, Belcher garnered and continues
to receive most of the media’s coverage and attention. Sadly, Zoey’s 22 year
old mother Kassandra Perkins, a community college student and aspiring educator
has far less of the media spotlight and she was the one murdered. Even Belcher’s
mother (who was in the home when the murder occurred,) left by her son to deal
with the fatal blood bath and death that ensued in his master bedroom, received
more media coverage than Zoey’s young mother who was shot nine times by the baby’s daddy with two of the legally owned
weapons in his arsenal.
Curiously Zoey’s
plight has received the least coverage of all, which made me wonder who will
tell her story? In posted Belcher and Perkins Facebook page pictures and family
photos, Zoey was a tiny but central fixture, obviously adored by doting
parents. At three months old she had just left that newborn stage and was no
doubt beginning to connect with her surroundings. Perhaps she was beginning to
smile, manipulate her newly found hand/eye coordination. Maybe she was
beginning to sleep through the night, coo at her mother or father; an infant’s’
tell-tale sign that she recognized their faces and voices.
Mercifully, she will not remember that she
was crying as her parents bitterly argued. She’ll probably not even remember
that her father kissed her one last time when he left the house on his
ill-fated escape to commit suicide. Perhaps Zoey may someday be comforted by
knowing that her father’s last words uttered to Chiefs’ Coach Romeo Crennel and
General Manager Scott Crennel before he took his own life were pleas for them
to “take care of his daughter.”
Apparently his pleas
for his daughter’s welfare and continued well being were heard by the right
people. Monetarily, the NFL will take good care of Zoey. The Kansas City Chiefs have established a
trust fund for her. “Our thoughts and prayers remain with the families and
everyone affected by the heartbreaking events of last Saturday,” Chiefs owner
Clark Hunt said in a team-issued release.
“As we continue to struggle with the emotional pain from the tragedy,
the Chiefs family is focused on helping 3-month-old Zoey Michelle Belcher as
she faces the challenge of growing up without the support of her parents. Zoey will always be a part of the Chiefs
family, and we hope that this trust will help to ensure she has the resources
necessary as she grows up.”
A December 5th
New York Daily News article notes
that Belcher’s four year playing status on his team also helped to provide for
his daughter’s future. Zoey stands to
receive $108,000 annually over the next four years, $48,000 in the fifth year
and then $52,000 each year until age 18. She will receive more money (until the
age of 23) if she decides to go to college. Belcher’s beneficiary also will receive
$600,000 in life insurance, plus $200,000 for each credited season. There is
also $100,000 in a retirement account that will go to his beneficiary or
estate. Ideally some or all of those funds will go to Zoey.
There are some things money won’t be able to buy for Zoey
however. She won’t be able to understand how her father, who was a member of
the University of Maine’s’ Athletes against Violence organization could brutally
take her mother’s life. She probably
won’t be able to comprehend how her father, a man who graduated in less than
four years with an undergraduate degree in child development and family
relations could so callously decimate their young family’s right to thrive and
prosper in a hailstorm of bullets. Both parents will miss her first steps, her
first words.
Zoey may need a lifetime of
intense therapy to cope with the painful knowledge that both of her parents
will never be a part of her life apart from photos, NFL video clips and memories of the two
shared by family members and friends. The greatest tragedy of this devastating
debacle is that both Jovan and Kassandra will miss the quintessential rites of passage
parents typically experience as their child grows up—Zoey’s first day at
school, her first date, first prom, graduation from high-school and college. There
will be no mother/daughter wedding dress trysts at bridal shops with Kassandra. Paraphrasing
Luther Vandross’ mournful musings, Zoey will never experience the joy of being lovingly
swept up in the big expansive linebacker arms of Jovan. She will never be able
to dance with her father.
I pray that Zoey will one day find and express her voice,
one that allows her to publicly and privately forgive her father. I pray that
she comes to know her parents fondly as two young people who created her in
love and who tried to love each other in the midst of the oft times overwhelming
financial, professional and social pressures of daily life. Only then will she
be able to lift herself out of what is sure to be a morass of unfathomable pain
and cease being left behind.
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