Things that suck: Good deeds, punished

We are looking to buy our first house, and around here, it's impossible to justify the prices that sellers are demanding, even in this weakened market. It's downright piggish. So, like thousands of other families living in Massachusetts, we started to look for alternatives to living in our "comfort zone". We've looked out as far as Shrewsbury & Ashland to the west, Rhode Island to the south...we're probably going to end up heading north, to southern New Hampshire.

Along the way, however, we looked at places in areas such as Framingham, Braintree, and Quincy - in questionable sections of town where you can get into a house for just over $300k, and I remember thinking to myself, "You know, no matter where we live, our children are going to end up fine. We're going to raise them right, they're going to learn the value of helping others, they're going to learn to keep their noses out of trouble."

So this week, when I learned about the story of Timmy Cahill, it sent chills up and down my spine - and gave our house hunt a lot more perspective. From the Boston Herald:

Timothy Cahill is as far removed from the sad and desperate world of a South Boston junkie as a Southie kid can get. Fact is, he works long hours at the South Boston Neighborhood House, trying to keep kids away from the abyss. He’s been coach, mentor, counselor and friend.

Still, Timmy Cahill, all of 25, was delivered to death’s door in the bright sunlight of Monday afternoon by a knife-wielding coward who mistook him for a Southie burnout with a long list of enemies.

It wasn’t the first time, friends said yesterday, that Timmy Cahill had been mistaken for one Joey Pano Jr. But this time, the lowlife who jumped out of a car on I Street, called him “Joey” and accused him of stealing a video game, didn’t wait to hear Timmy say, “You got the wrong guy.”

The knife tore through his liver and cut a main artery in his chest. Timmy was 20 feet from the Quencher Tavern, where his dad, Jimmy, a retired Boston firefighter, was waiting with his cheeseburger.

I can't imagine the anguish Jimmy Cahill felt, watching in horror as his son stumbled through the door, clutching his chest, blood spilling through his fingers. The elder Cahill had already gone through a traumatic event in his life: he had to retire from the BFD after suffering a massive stroke. And now, because of it, he was little help to Timmy, who would always be his little boy.

Due to the heroic efforts of the friends and family that constantly surround them, Tim has a good chance to survive. They quickly mobilized, and kept him from bleeding out. We'll probably hear about how Tim recovers, forgives his attacker, then returns to the life of service he undoubtedly owes to his upbringing. Essentially, a much greater good could come out of this. Or, conversely, he could die and become another tragic story with a moral.

Either way, I've decided that my life as a parent is just beginning, and the worrying that accompanies it is constant. So I'm going to find a nice house, on a nice street, in a nice town, and then lock my children in the basement.