Letter From the Editor A college rite one mom will never get
It is one of the longest car rides I have ever taken in my life.
And this is from someone who has driven across the country to Colorado eight or nine times. Have you ever traversed Kansas on I-70? You can look out and see where you’re going to be tomorrow. My all-time record, however, is a trip back at Christmas one year. I posted a note in the student union looking for riders. We left Boulder Thursday night at 7. I walked into my parents house 1 o’clock Saturday afternoon. Nonstop. Saw the sun come up twice. Yes, I was young once. No, I don’t recommend it.
But none of those trips compares to one particular two hour jaunt I spent traversing the Northeast Extension with my wife.
We had just deposited our son for his freshman year at college. We were familiar with the routine. We had been taking our daughter the same route for several years. She went to Lafayette; he was starting college at Muhlenberg.
As we got into the car to head home, we both sort of realized what was happening, but neither one of us wanted to say it.
Finally, I looked across at her, stuck out my hand and said, “Hi, I’m Phil.”
She was too busy wiping away the tears to say anything back. Unexpectedly, I felt myself feeling the same way, even if I managed to camouflage my feelings with just a few sniffles.
We were alone. It was just the two of us.
We both knew it was coming. After spending more than two decades shepherding our kids, they were now on their own.
I’m sure they were exhilarated; their parents a little less so.
It is one of those familial rites that every parent deals with.
I was thinking about that car ride all last week, in part because we covered the annual move-in day activities at Widener and several local colleges.
But the truth is I was thinking about someone else. I could not stop thinking about Michelle Roberson.
She was supposed to be taking part in this tradition last week, only to have it snatched away from her in a moment of madness.
Michelle Roberson is the mother of Bianca Roberson. Yes, her name has been very much in the headlines. She was the victim of a road-rage shooting on Route 100 in Chester County.
Mother and daughter, along with grandmom, actually had been shopping for a few things as Bianca prepared to start her college career at Jacksonville University in Florida back on June 28. Then the three of them got in their cars and went their separate ways.
Bianca, 18, a recent graduate of Rustin High School in West Chester, was headed home on Route 100. But at the point where the highway narrows to one lane as it funnels traffic onto Route 100, she encountered pure evil.
Police believe she got into some kind of altercation with another driver. They described it as a “cat and mouse” game over the merge into the single lane.
Then the unthinkable – really the unimaginable – happened.
Police say the driver of a red pickup truck took out a gun and fired a shot, hitting Bianca Roberson once in the head, killing her instantly.
The case attracted national headlines as police left no stone unturned searching for the driver of the red pickup truck.
Just 48 hours after the shooting, after video surveillance images of the red Silverado were widely distributed, a Delaware County man turned himself in at this attorney’s office. David Desper, 28, faces charges of first-degree murder.
We know who police believe pulled that trigger. What we don’t know is why.
None of which matters all that much to Michelle Roberson.
Last week she was supposed to driving Bianca to school in Florida. They planned a pit stop to visit relatives in Georgia.
Instead she is alone with her grief, wondering why this happened, why such a bright young life was snatched away in such a senseless act.
Bianca will not be among the 600 members of the Class of 2021 entering Jacksonville University.
But her spirit will be there. The school has announced a special initiative and scholarship in her honor.
The Just Be Kind initiative will put an emphasis on acts of kindness, community service and outreach.
I’d like to thank Bianca for something else as well.
Her tragedy reminded an often agitated editor – one who is prone to tantrums or other fits of pique while behind the wheel – to wise up.
You just don’t know who is in that other car and what they are capable of doing.
Bianca Roberson is not going away to school. She will not hug her mom one last time before skipping happily back into the dorm – ready to take the next step toward adulthood.
It’s a step every college student takes.
And it’s one so many parents fear.
Michelle Roberson will not experience that unease. She is too busy mourning. And my heart breaks for her.