Saturday, April 29, 2006

To be with his mom

Bobby Gurno saw the yellow police tape before he saw his mother lying dead behind it.

He had walked about 2 miles from his homeless camp under a Minneapolis bridge to where his mother was living lately, behind the Target store on Lake Street [About a mile, a light year or a breath from me]. The police wouldn't let him get close. Arlene Beaulieu lay there, covered by a blue tarp amid a dirt pile, a shopping cart and strewn garbage.

When he saw his mother taken away in a bag, he couldn't stop the tears that welled in his eyes. He should have been there to protect her, he told a friend later. Now, the closest family he ever knew was gone.

I want to go be with her, Bobby repeated over and over, walking on the streets for weeks afterward, fighting his tears with vodka and whiskey. I want to go be with my mom.
[snip]
Authorities pulled his body from the river that night. An autopsy showed that he had drowned. He was 27, half his mother's age when she died.
[snip] StarTribune


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