The Valley Viewpoint

So here we are again. Another chapter in the long American story of “How did no one notice this sooner?”

Minnesota Governor Tim Walz — once marketed as the steady Midwestern grown-up in the room and briefly elevated to the national stage — is reportedly preparing to skip a reelection run. The timing, of course, is pure coincidence. Just happens to coincide with a multi-year, multi-billion-dollar fraud investigation tied to state social service programs that were supposed to help kids, families, and the poor — not bankroll criminal enterprises with nonprofit letterhead.

According to reporting in the New York Post, federal and state investigators have already secured dozens of indictments and convictions in schemes involving Medicaid, food aid, and child-care funding. This wasn’t a couple of bad receipts or sloppy bookkeeping. This was industrial-scale fraud — the kind that requires not just criminal creativity, but sustained government inattention.

And that’s the part voters tend to notice.

No one is accusing Walz of personally stuffing envelopes or cashing checks. That’s not how these stories usually work. This is about something far more dangerous in public life: systems that fail loudly while leaders insist everything is under control — until it very clearly isn’t.

For years, auditors waved red flags. Whistleblowers raised alarms. Bureaucrats warned of programs hemorrhaging money with little oversight. Yet the money kept flowing, the checks kept clearing, and the press releases kept coming. Only later did the “reforms” arrive — usually right after indictments made denial impossible.

Now, suddenly, the governor may be done. Not defeated. Not voted out. Just… moving on. A strategic retreat. A graceful exit. Washington will always need another think-tank fellow.

Here’s the Valley Viewpoint reality check:

When public money meant to feed children and support families gets looted, the damage isn’t just financial. It corrodes trust — in government, in social programs, and in the very idea that compassion and competence can coexist.

And when leadership answers that collapse of trust with silence, spin, or a conveniently timed exit, voters notice that too.

Minnesota will choose its next governor. Prosecutors will finish their work. Careers will reset. But the bill for broken oversight doesn’t disappear when a politician steps aside.

It just gets passed along — to taxpayers, to communities, and to the next group of leaders who swear this time they’ll be watching the money.

We’ve heard that promise before.

When I agreed to help organize our 50th Xavier high school reunion, I thought I was saying yes to dates, emails, and logistics.

What I was really saying yes to was memory.

Almost immediately, the work stopped being about a weekend and became about people. About reconnecting with classmates I hadn’t spoken to in decades. About hearing familiar voices that somehow sounded exactly the same and completely different all at once. About learning who stayed nearby, who moved far away, who built families, who lost them, who quietly carried more than any of us ever knew back when we were boys in jackets and ties.

As I reached out, again and again the conversation circled back to the same place: gratitude. Not the sentimental kind, but the grown-up kind that comes with age. Gratitude for parents who worked overtime, skipped vacations, kept cars longer than they should have, and made choices we didn’t fully understand at fourteen. Fathers who were waiters, cops, firemen, small business owners. Mothers who stretched households in ways we only recognize now. Sending a son to Xavier High School was not a casual decision. It was an act of faith.

Organizing this reunion has felt, at times, like gathering pieces of an unfinished story. Each phone call adds another paragraph. Each email fills in a blank space. Some names are easy to find. Others are harder. And some names now live only in memory, which has brought its own quiet weight to the work. Fifty years is long enough for absence to become part of the room.

What I didn’t expect was how often the conversations drifted away from careers and accomplishments and landed instead on formation. On character. On being taken seriously too early. On the subway rides into the city and the sense that Xavier expected something of us before we were sure we could deliver it. We weren’t being prepared for comfort. We were being prepared for responsibility.

As this reunion has taken shape, it’s become clear to me that it can’t just be a party. It has to be a pause. A moment to stand still long enough to acknowledge where we came from, who helped us get there, and what we still owe—to each other, to our families, to the men we once were.

Organizing the 50th reunion has reminded me that the Class of 1976 wasn’t bound together by privilege, but by effort. By sacrifice. By parents who believed education and character mattered, even when it cost them something real. By Jesuits who saw in us things we could have not known.

This work has been less about planning an event and more about honoring a shared past—carefully, respectfully, and without noise. Fifty years later, it feels right that the reunion reflect not just who we are now, but how we got here.

And in its own quiet way, that may be the most Xavier thing of all.

There I am. Hands folded. Feet planted. Standing exactly where I was told to stand. The red sweater fits just right—because it was made that way. Knitted by my Auntie Delia, my grandfather’s sister, stitch by stitch, with the quiet certainty of someone who knew both her craft and her people.
My grandfather’s sister was named Delia—Auntie Delia to me. She left Ireland after her brother did, crossed the same ocean in a different season of life, and somehow ended up settling on the very same block in New York City. Different journeys, same destination. Close enough that family wasn’t something you scheduled—it was just there, woven into the rhythm of everyday life.
I can still remember going for fittings. Standing there while she adjusted and checked her work, pulling the sweater just so. I also remember that it itched. Not unbearably—but enough to notice. Enough that I was aware I was wearing something handmade, something real, something that hadn’t been softened by time or washing yet.
Behind me, the city moves along without noticing. Adults walk with purpose. Cars pass by. Everyone seems to have somewhere important to be. I, meanwhile, am fully committed to my assignment: stand still, squint into the light, wait for the click, and then move on to whatever comes next. Preferably something involving food.
At that age, I didn’t think much about where things came from. A sweater was just a sweater. You put it on. It kept you warm. You went about your day. I didn’t know that someone had taken time—real, patient time—to make this one by hand, or that Auntie Delia had sat somewhere quiet, needles moving, thinking about a kid she loved enough to make something just for him.
The sweater matters now.
It fits—not just in size, but in spirit. Handmade. Unrushed. Practical. Built to last. There’s something grounding about that kind of care, especially when you realize how rare it becomes as the years go by.
The kid in the picture doesn’t know any of this yet. He’s just doing what he’s told, trusting the adults around him, assuming the day will unfold the way days usually do. And most of the time, back then, it did.
Looking at this photograph now, I don’t feel the need to warn him or offer advice. I just feel grateful. Grateful for the warmth he didn’t question—even the itch he tolerated. Grateful for the people who showed love without making a production of it. Grateful for Auntie Delia, whose hands are still present in this moment, even though she’s nowhere in the frame.
Not a bad kid.
And a very good sweater.

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative

We talk a lot in this country about access to justice. Filing fees. Legal aid. Overworked public defenders. Backlogged courts. All of those are real problems, and all of them matter. But in 2026, the deeper fight may be something far more uncomfortable to confront: what happens when the system isn’t just inaccessible—but compromised.

Because access to justice doesn’t only collapse when people can’t afford lawyers. It collapses when people no longer trust the judges.

Across the country, confidence in the judiciary is quietly eroding. Not because citizens suddenly became cynical, but because they’ve watched too many examples of conflicts ignored, misconduct minimized, and accountability quietly avoided. When judges appear immune from scrutiny, justice stops feeling blind and starts feeling selective. And once that perception takes hold, it doesn’t stay contained. It spreads—from litigants, to communities, to the broader civic fabric that depends on courts being believed even when their decisions are unpopular.

What makes this erosion especially dangerous is how little attention is paid to the system’s own vulnerabilities. At the very moment the judiciary asks the public to trust its integrity, its independence, and its ability to police itself, the infrastructure that supports it has already shown cracks. The Public Access to Court Electronic Records (PACER)—the federal docket system that houses filings, affidavits, motions, financial disclosures, and some of the most sensitive personal information in the country—was hacked. Not rumored. Not theoretical. Hacked.

And yet most Americans never heard about it.

There were no sustained headlines. No national reckoning with how judicial data is stored, protected, or exposed. No serious conversation about the fact that PACER contains the raw materials of justice itself: names, addresses, medical records, sealed filings, financial details, and the permanent histories of people whose lives collide with the power of the state. When private corporations suffer breaches, executives testify and reforms are promised. When the courts themselves are compromised, the response is muted, almost embarrassed—as if scrutiny itself were somehow inappropriate.

That instinct—to protect the institution rather than confront its failures—is precisely where corruption takes root.

Judicial corruption rarely looks like envelopes of cash or cinematic scandal. More often, it appears in quieter forms: judges ruling on cases involving former partners, donors, or political allies; ethical complaints dismissed behind closed doors; procedural rules applied harshly to some and gently to others; litigants punished not for weak cases, but for being inconvenient. Over time, those patterns send a clear message to people without power or pedigree: the courthouse is not a place of refuge, but another obstacle course—one where the rules bend selectively and the outcome often feels predetermined.

The legal battles ahead—over funding, immigration, housing, civil rights, and due process—will dominate headlines in 2026. But those fights are meaningless if the referees themselves aren’t trusted. You can expand legal aid, streamline filings, and modernize court technology all you want. None of it matters if litigants believe the fix is already in. And once that belief takes hold, it spreads fast. People stop filing legitimate claims. They stop appealing unjust rulings. They stop believing the law belongs to them at all.

That is not just an access-to-justice problem. It is a legitimacy crisis.

This isn’t an abstract debate for legal scholars or advocacy groups. It’s felt every day by people who walk into court without lawyers, without connections, and without leverage—only to discover that rules seem flexible for some and immovable for others. In communities like ours, the courthouse is supposed to be the last place where power doesn’t matter. When that promise breaks, the damage ripples outward—into civic trust, community stability, and whether people believe fairness is even possible anymore.

The real fight ahead isn’t just about statutes or budgets. It’s about whether the judiciary is willing to confront its own vulnerabilities or continue asking the public for trust it has not earned. Access to justice begins with access to an honest judge. Without that, the rest is theater.

And the most dangerous corruption of all isn’t loud or criminal.

It’s normalized.

It’s protected.

And it wears a robe.

From time to time, someone will say, “Relax—it’s just a dog,” or “That’s a lot of money for just a dog.”
What they don’t see is the distance traveled, the hours invested, the sacrifices made—all for what they dismiss so casually.
Some of my proudest moments have come beside just a dog.
Some of my loneliest hours were softened by the quiet presence of just a dog.
And some of my hardest days—the gray, heavy ones—were made survivable by the gentle touch of just a dog, who asked nothing and gave everything.
If you believe it’s just a dog, then you probably believe in things like just a friend, just a sunrise, or just a promise.
Because just a dog carries the very essence of friendship—unconditional trust, loyalty without transaction, joy without restraint.
Just a dog teaches patience.
Just a dog awakens compassion.
Just a dog makes me better than I was the day before.

For just a dog, I wake up earlier than I have to.
I walk farther than I planned.
I think more about tomorrow than yesterday.

So no—it’s not just a dog.
It is the keeper of memories already made and hopes still forming.
It is the reminder to stay present, to step outside myself, to worry less and feel more.
And maybe one day they’ll understand:
It’s not just a dog—
it’s the creature that reminds me how to be human.
So when someone shrugs and says, “It’s just a dog,” I smile.
Because they just don’t get it.

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative

This week between Christmas and New Year’s Eve has become my favorite time of the year.

This year, it arrived quietly, almost without announcement, as if the world itself had decided to exhale. The noise receded. Expectations loosened. The constant hum of what’s next softened enough for me to finally hear my own thoughts. I found myself leaning into the stillness, recognizing how much I needed it.

I realized how differently I experienced this stretch of days now. Once, it felt like a pause filled with waiting—for the next gathering, the next obligation, the next beginning. This week, it felt like comfort. A pause I hadn’t known I was craving until I was standing inside it.

There was an ease in the lack of structure. The calendar opened up. Emails went unanswered without consequence. Conversations slowed. Mornings arrived without urgency. Coffee lingered in the cup because there was nowhere I had to rush to be. Even time itself felt less demanding, as though it had loosened its grip.

What stayed with me most was the honesty this week allowed. Without the usual distractions, I felt the weight of the year more clearly—what it gave me, what it took from me, and how it changed me in quiet, unannounced ways. Gratitude surfaced, but so did fatigue and disappointment. I recognized how much I had carried without naming it. In the stillness of this week, that recognition felt gentle rather than heavy.

This week didn’t ask me to explain myself or fix anything. It didn’t demand resolutions or declarations. It simply offered space to reflect without judgment. I could sit with who I was right now—not who I thought I should be—and that felt like enough.

I noticed myself paying attention to smaller things. A longer walk. A familiar song playing in the background. The early darkness settling in like a blanket instead of a warning. These moments didn’t announce themselves as meaningful, but they were. They reminded me I was still present, still paying attention.

By the time the year reached its final hours, I understood what this week had given me. Not answers. Not a plan. Just comfort. The kind that comes from slowing down enough to feel where you are and realizing it’s okay to stay there for a moment. The world would pick up its pace again soon enough. But for this brief stretch, the quiet held. And in that holding, I found rest, gratitude, and the reassurance that not everything needs to be rushed to matter.

I’ve never been very good at the New Year rush.

You know the routine—big resolutions, bold promises, dramatic declarations that this will be the year everything finally comes together. New calendar, new you, no loose ends allowed.

But most years don’t begin that way. They begin quietly. Unevenly. With some things unresolved and others still unnamed.

That’s why, at the turn of the year, I keep coming back to the words of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, the Jesuit priest who managed to live at the intersection of science and faith, intellect and mystery—and who understood patience far better than most of us ever will.

His line is simple:

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God.”

Jesuit wisdom often works like that. No fireworks. No slogans. Just a quiet truth that stays with you.

Teilhard knew how impatient we are. He didn’t scold it; he named it:

“We are quite naturally impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages.”

That’s us. We want the lesson without the struggle, the clarity without the confusion, the peace without the waiting. We want January to fix what took years to tangle.

But life doesn’t work that way. And faith certainly doesn’t.

Teilhard reminds us that growth is messy by design:

“It is the law of all progress that it is made by passing through some stages of instability—and that it may take a very long time.”

That word—instability—used to bother me. Now I find it oddly reassuring. Instability means something is moving. It means you’re not stuck, even if you’re uncomfortable.

Jesuit spirituality has always been honest about that discomfort. It doesn’t promise easy answers; it asks you to pay attention. To notice what’s stirring. To stay with the questions instead of rushing past them.

I learned that lesson firsthand years ago in a conversation with James Keenan, better known to most of us simply as Jim Keenan, SJ. We were talking about growth, about frustration, about that constant sense of wanting things to move faster than they do. At one point, he smiled—gently, the way Jesuits do when they’re about to tell you something you already know but don’t quite want to hear—and said, almost casually, “Patience is still something you need to work on.”

No lecture. No judgment. Just a quiet truth placed squarely in front of me.

It stayed with me because it was right. And because it still is.

Teilhard puts words to that same idea:

“Let your ideas mature gradually—let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste.”

Not everything needs to be decided in January. Not every doubt needs a name. Not every door needs to be forced open.

One line lands harder the older you get:

“Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time… will make of you tomorrow.”

There’s a humility in that—earned only by experience. By realizing how often we tried to rush becoming someone we weren’t ready to be yet.

And then there’s this, perhaps his most honest line:

“Accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.”

Incomplete.

That’s not how we like to describe ourselves. But maybe it’s the most truthful way to begin a new year. Not finished. Not figured out. Still in motion.

Jesuits speak often about discernment—about trusting that God works not only in answers, but in the waiting. Teilhard lived that belief. Jim KeenanSJ reminded me of it personally. What matters most isn’t mastering the outcome; it’s being faithful to the moment you’re actually in.

So this year, I’m not making grand promises. I’m not pretending I have it all lined up.

I’m trying something quieter.

Showing up. Paying attention. Practicing patience—still practicing it—and trusting that something good is happening even when I can’t yet explain it.

As this year opens, I’m giving myself a little grace. I’m letting go of the need to have everything named, solved, or settled. Some things in my life are still tender. Some questions remain open. Some hopes are only half-formed. And that’s okay. The most meaningful changes rarely announce themselves when they arrive. They unfold slowly, almost unnoticed, asking only that I stay present, do the next right thing, and trust that I’m being led—even when the path ahead isn’t clear yet.

For now, that feels like enough.

Trust the slow work.

It’s been going on longer than we realize.

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative

Hudson Valley residents don’t need a lecture on government waste. We’ve sat through enough school budget hearings, property-tax debates, and “temporary” levies that never seem to disappear. We understand something fundamental: when oversight fails, the bill always comes due — locally.

That’s why what happened in Minnesota isn’t some distant Midwestern scandal. It’s a warning.

Under Governor Tim Walz, Minnesota oversaw what federal prosecutors now describe as the largest pandemic-era fraud scheme in the country — and that may have been only the beginning. Billions of taxpayer dollars, earmarked for children, healthcare, and vulnerable families, were allegedly siphoned off while state agencies missed, ignored, or downplayed obvious red flags.

Here in the Valley, we know how government is supposed to work. You flag a problem, you fix it. You don’t wait for the feds to show up with indictments and then hold a press conference about “lessons learned.”

Yet that is precisely what happened in Minnesota.

Warnings were raised by state employees. Oversight systems existed. And still, fraud flourished — not because the tools weren’t there, but because leadership failed to use them. That failure didn’t occur in a vacuum. It occurred under a governor who now asks voters to see the scandal as an unfortunate footnote rather than a defining failure of governance.

Valley taxpayers should bristle at that framing.

Because if this can happen in Minnesota — with agencies funded, staffed, and supposedly monitored — it can happen anywhere. Including here. Especially when political leaders grow more focused on controlling the narrative than confronting the problem.

What’s most troubling isn’t just the fraud itself. It’s the response.

Instead of owning the breakdown, Governor Walz initially minimized estimates, dismissed criticism as “sensationalized,” and allowed allies to wave it off as partisan noise. That instinct is familiar to anyone who’s watched Albany or Washington circle the wagons while insisting everything is under control.

We’ve heard that before. And we know how it usually ends.

The media’s reluctance to dig deeper only compounds the issue. When watchdogs become cheerleaders — or worse, look away — accountability disappears. And when accountability disappears, the people who play by the rules pay the price.

For Hudson Valley readers, the takeaway is simple and sobering: this isn’t about Minnesota politics. It’s about whether government can be trusted to safeguard public money at all.

Leadership isn’t tested when things run smoothly. It’s tested when warning signs flash and hard decisions must be made early — before the damage is irreversible.

On that measure, Minnesota’s governor failed. And dismissing that failure doesn’t protect public trust. It erodes it.

Here in the Valley, we expect better. And we should demand it — from every level of government, regardless of party, geography, or talking points.

Because once trust is lost, no press release can buy it back.

In our lives, we don’t just lose objects or moments—we lose entire chapters of ourselves.

We lose health, sometimes gradually, sometimes all at once.
We lose time, often without noticing it slipping through our fingers.
We lose relationships that once defined our days.
We even lose earlier versions of ourselves—the person we were before we knew better, before life reshaped us.

There’s something healthy, even human, about being able to laugh at how some of those losses happened. The irony. The missteps. The moments where we did the best we could with what we knew then. Laughter doesn’t dishonor the loss—it softens the edges so we can keep going.

But there’s also a quiet necessity in mourning them.

Because grief isn’t weakness. It’s not indulgence. It’s not self-pity.

Grieving is a strong, deliberate act. It’s how we acknowledge that something mattered. That someone mattered. That a version of our life was real, meaningful, and worth remembering.

And sometimes, it’s a wonderful thing to share those thoughts with old friends—guys who have known you since you were a kid. Guys who remember who you were before the detours, before the scars, before the rewrites. Guys you don’t have to be guarded with, because there’s nothing to explain and nothing to perform. They already know you.

There’s an absolute wonderfulness in that kind of friendship—the comfort of being seen without armor, the ease of speaking honestly, the quiet understanding that comes from shared history.

To grieve is to say: this shaped me.
And to honor it—through tears, through laughter, and through conversations with those who’ve walked beside you the longest—is one of the most honest things we ever do.

I’ve been thinking about this story longer than I expected to.

Not because it’s shocking—sadly, it isn’t—but because it feels uncomfortably close to things I’ve seen before. Over the course of my career in labor relations and employment law, I’ve sat at conference tables, reviewed policies, advised managers, and watched how organizations respond when an employee stops being productive and starts being vulnerable.

A young woman. Smart. Capable. Employed at a successful tech company in Manhattan. Someone who, on paper, was doing everything “right.” Until she wasn’t.

According to a lawsuit now filed in New York, the pressure of her job slowly hollowed her out. Anxiety. Depression. A point where getting through the day became impossible. When that happened, she did what employees are told to do. She raised her hand. She took medical leave. She sought treatment. She trusted the system.

And for a while, the system appeared to respond.

Leave was granted. Conversations were had. Extensions were discussed. I’ve seen those emails before—carefully worded, professional, sympathetic on their face. The kind that reference policy while expressing concern. The kind that look reasonable when read aloud in a conference room.

Then the tone shifts.

Patience thins. Calendars matter more than conditions. Timelines replace judgment. The human situation becomes a “case” to be managed.

Her health insurance—while she was still in treatment—was cut off. Soon after, she lost her job.

Weeks later, she was dead.

I didn’t know her. But I’ve known versions of this story for years. Not the ending—but the path. Over and over, I’ve watched organizations move from support to separation, not out of malice, but out of habit. Policy thresholds get hit. Leave expires. Benefits end. Decisions are made that are technically defensible and procedurally clean.

And yet, devastating.

The company named in the lawsuit—MongoDB—has not commented publicly. The courts will decide what obligations were breached, if any. But legal compliance has always been the floor, not the ceiling. In labor relations, we know this. We’ve always known it.

What troubles me most is the absence of intention. No cartoon villain. No dramatic confrontation. Just a system doing exactly what it was designed to do when someone stops producing. The role is filled. The coverage ends. The file is closed.

Except for the people left behind.

We talk endlessly now about mental health in the workplace. Posters. Slack reminders. EAP links. Awareness days. But over the years, I’ve seen how quickly support evaporates when a condition lasts longer than expected, costs more than planned, or resists neat recovery timelines.

Employment in this country is a fragile bargain. Your job is your healthcare. Your healthcare is your lifeline. Lose one, and the rest can disappear almost overnight. When someone is already drowning, removing stability—even lawfully—can have irreversible consequences.

I don’t believe employers are responsible for every tragedy. Mental illness is complex. Suicide is never simple. But after years in this field, I do believe this: when an employee tells you they are not okay, and your response is driven primarily by policy expiration dates instead of human judgment, something fundamental has failed.

This case isn’t just about one company or one lawsuit. It’s about a culture of work that still confuses risk management with care. It’s about systems built for efficiency being asked—poorly—to handle fragility.

And it leaves me with the same question I’ve asked myself many times over my career:

When someone at work breaks down completely—when they are no longer useful, efficient, or easy—do our systems still recognize them as human?

If the answer is “only up to a point,” then that point deserves far more scrutiny than it gets.

A Valley Viewpoint Narrative

There’s a line in Mayor Yvonne Flowers’ Christmas message, posted below, that keeps echoing long after the decorations come down. Not the thanks to volunteers—that part matters and should be said. It’s the explanation that followed. The acknowledgment that things were “a bit overwhelmed without Frank.”

That stopped me.

Because when we’re talking about children—kids whose names were written on letters, kids who waited for gifts that never came—leadership cannot hinge on the presence or absence of one person. Especially not someone who holds no official role. And especially not someone whose recent, very public legal troubles underscore precisely why public-facing charitable programs must be built to function beyond personal reliance.

This isn’t about piling on. It’s about understanding how fragile systems fail.

When a program collapses because one individual isn’t available, the problem isn’t bad luck or unfortunate timing. It’s structure. It’s planning. It’s governance. Holiday charity isn’t a family operation—it’s a public trust. And public trust requires continuity, safeguards, and accountability.

Referencing a brother’s absence—under any circumstances—raises a deeper concern: who was responsible for making sure there was a backup plan? Who ensured donations didn’t simply “stop”? Who made sure no child was left behind because the system depended too heavily on informal help rather than institutional readiness?

Children don’t experience “context.” They experience outcomes.

They don’t know about staffing gaps, personal challenges, or legal distractions. They just know whether Santa came—or didn’t.

The volunteers showed up. The community tried. But leadership is measured not by effort alone—it’s measured by results, especially when the stakes are this human.

In the Valley, we understand something simple: explanations may comfort adults, but accountability protects children. And that’s the standard we should never lower—especially at Christmas.

In the photograph, there is a boy—young, thoughtful, his shoulders squared in that way that suggests he’s carrying more than his own weight. His name was Devante Burris. He was a student at Lincoln Hall, the residential school where I once worked—a place meant to offer young men in the juvenile justice system something most had never truly been given: a second chance.

This Christmas, I find myself reflecting on his story.

Devante had a presence about him. Serious. Focused. The kind of look that told you he was thinking beyond the moment in front of him. He spoke about the future. He told me he wanted to join the military. For him, it wasn’t just an escape from the past—it was a path toward purpose, discipline, and belonging. A way forward.

Wanting to give that dream every possible chance, I connected Devante with two men who understood service and sacrifice firsthand: Colonel T.J. Farrell and Captain Pete Sciabara—both longtime friends from my Xavier High School days. Neither hesitated.

Between them, they gave Devante something rare: time, attention, and respect. Long conversations filled with honesty, encouragement, and lived experience. They didn’t talk at him; they talked with him. They spoke as men who had worn the uniform, led others, and understood exactly what Devante was reaching for. They treated his aspiration not as a fantasy, but as something worthy of serious consideration.

In doing so, TJ and Pete honored what we were taught at Xavier—that the Holy Spirit asks us to show up, to use our talents, and to place them in service of others. No spotlight. No obligation. Just presence. Just care. Just the quiet belief that one life, given a little guidance and dignity, is worth the effort.

After those meetings, Devante sent me a thank-you note. It was gracious and hopeful. You could feel it in his words—he believed a door had opened. For the first time in a long while, the future felt possible.

But life has a cruel way of interrupting hope.

Not long after Devante was discharged from Lincoln Hall, he returned home. And then—suddenly, senselessly—he was shot and killed. We still don’t know who took his life. His murder remains unsolved. No answers. No accountability. Just an empty space where a future was supposed to be.

There’s no way to wrap that in meaning. No neat conclusion that makes it okay.

What remains is this: Devante tried. He wanted something better. And for a moment, he believed he could reach it. Colonel Farrell and Captain Sciabara helped ignite that belief by simply showing up, and I will always be grateful for that.

Devante Burris mattered. His story matters. His life mattered.

May his soul rest in peace—and may we never stop working toward a world where young men like him are given the chance to grow old.