This is an opinion column.

I wonder. I see them—the 135. The men and women, some of them the most innocent of children, who lost their lives as victims of homicides in Birmingham in 2023.

I see their faces. I see their smiles. I see life in their eyes. And I wonder.

I wonder about their last thoughts.

I wonder what raced through their minds in those awful moments. What they thought as life ebbed into darkness. As their breaths shortened. As consciousness flowed into, well, we don’t really know.

I wonder. Not out of ghoulish curiosity. Out of hope. Hope that if we knew, if everyone felt the searing pain, the unmitigated fear, the deep, wrenching grief that vice-gripped their consciousness as the end neared, maybe—just maybe—somebody in 2024 won’t pull a trigger.

Maybe somebody in 2024 will pause before aiming and squeezing. Out of revenge. (Many shooters scream, ‘In the name of [someone they lost]’ as they pull the trigger.) Out of jealousy. Out of a transaction gone awry. Out of card or dice game. Out of petty. Out of anything short of clear and undeniable self-defense.

Maybe somebody in 2024 won’t risk snatching life, won’t unleash a hail of lead sprayed into a home. Into a car. Sprayed on a street filled with men, women, and children with no stake in their beef.

Maybe.

I confess it does not feel all right that we’re relived at the 135. Relieved because last year saw 6.25% fewer homicides in Birmingham than the prior year when homicides caused 144 deaths, the first drop in five years.

We were not alone in this decline, thankfully. Many of the nation’s largest cities saw even more precipitous slides in homicides: Philadelphia (-21%), Los Angeles (-16%), Phoenix (-15%), Dallas (-14%), New York City and Houston (-11%).

These shifts belie the divisive Republican rhetoric claiming predominantly Black cities run by mayors who are Democrats (as is Birmingham) are imploding, rhetoric regularly infused with the racist taunt that as Blacks waive a Black Lives Matter flag with one hand, they kill each other with the other.

Painfully, yes, we are killing each other, our young men and women are killing each other—still. Call it the poisonous fruit borne from centuries of conditions that drained more than a generation of what it means—how it truly feels—to die.

Or care.

“They don’t see value in themselves,” Onoyemi Williams, an activist in these dangerous streets with Faith in Action and Live Free. “When you value something, you protect it.”

2022 capped a steady, wrenching climb in senseless killings, ending as the deadliest in the city’s recent history. Ending in a mosh pit of blame (as senseless as the homicides themselves) and inspiring, finally, further investments in a handful of programs aimed at treating the plague at various levels. In schools. In hospitals. On the streets.

Related stories on violence solutions:

Gun violence affects communities: Experts, advocates offer how to help

Birmingham principal identifies path for change after student deaths: ‘We need to listen’

Siblings mourn loved ones slain amid Birmingham’s homicide crisis

Jefferson County works to aid victims of violent crime amid growing Hispanic community

So, perhaps our relief is somewhat understandable, relief that or investments are bearing dividends. We can’t retire on 6.5%, but it beats further loss. Further pain. Further wondering.

Wondering, particularly about the last moments of the innocents, God bless them. The men, women, and, oh, the children, who died in crossfires, died amid domestic violence, died trying to sell something using the Internet, died while at their job.

Died like …

… Jasmine Price, 33 …

… Roman Gonzalez, 48 …

… Robert Dewayne White, 43 …

… Darnell Michael Puidokas, 36 …

… Autumn Duskin, 4 months old …

… Kenneth Earl Harris, 42, …

… Kamarree Phillips, 17…

… George Williams Jr., 63 …

… Jermiera Fowler, 31 …

… Jordan Melton, 28 …

… Snir Lilum, 44 …

… and so, so, so, too many others …

Others who died senselessly simply trying to live. To be.

I cannot fathom it. Don’t want to fathom the fear they must have felt—living life one moment, feeling it fading the next. I can’t bear wondering of their pain, their loss, wondering about the grief that must have pierced through them. Through no fault of their own.

Especially the children. Children asleep in their homes. Playing in their homes. Thinking, as all children should, they were safe. That they would live to see tomorrow, and beyond.

I wonder about the others, too. The ones in the life. The ones who choose it—maybe believing it is their only choice. The ones who make a conscious decision to walk that walk. To talk that talk.

To bear arms.

To do what they have to do.

To do it all because so many around them are making the same choice, walking the same walk, talking the same talk.

When we talked, Williams also shared this story:

We were at the hospital following what would end up being a homicide. The family of the young man was at the hospital, emotions were raw. One young man, he was 19, was crying—for three reasons. The first reason was because his cousin was dead. That’s grief. The second reason was because, he said, “Now, I got to go do something. I don’t want to do it.” That’s revenge. The third reason: He was crying for himself because, he said, “I’m not ready to die.” In the torment of the situation, that is what life was for him, and is for so many of them.

So maybe, in 2024, one of them will not got to go do something, will not squeeze a trigger in the name of ….

Maybe one of them will not do so because, well, they’re not ready to die. Finally.

(NOTE: Birmingham had its first homicide of the year Saturday night – Jan. 6)

I’m a proud and humble member of the National Association of Black Journalists Hall of Fame and a Pulitzer Prize finalist for commentary. My column appears on AL.com, as well as the Lede. Tell me what you think at [email protected], and follow me at twitter.com/roysj, or on Instagram @roysj