Years ago, a homeless man put a gun to my little brothers face

My brother was about 13 at the time. Not only that but he has autism. He's the one who's being raised by my mom alone (if anyone remembers me talking about that before).

I wasn't with him when it happened but this was back when I lived with my mom. So I was home with her. My brother was playing soccer at the park with his friends & at some point, the ball hit a homeless man in the face who was sleeping on the side somewhere. All the kids immediately ran away except my brother. He just stood there not knowing how to react because he doesn't always know how to react in situations he doesn't understand.

The man walked straight up to my brother & put a gun to his head, right in his face. The neighbors across the street saw it happen & they started yelling. So the homeless man ran away & those neighbors called the police while they checked on my brother to make sure he was okay. They stayed with him until the cops showed up & eventually the cops knocked on our door to tell us what happened.

The homeless man was already caught & arrested by then. At that point I was honestly so pissed off that if he wasn't caught, I would've went searching for him myself. Wouldn't be the first time I put someone in the hospital for messing with my siblings 🤷 either that or I would've gotten shot myself.

My brother didn't react very much the entire day. He seemed fine & had a confused look on his face.. but he wasn't freaked out or worried quite yet.

Then at the end of the night when we were driving, he asked our mom, "hey mom... I could've died today?" & Our mom simply said, "well... yeah sweetie. You got lucky". He just said "oh.." & then he just started crying 😔

That shit broke my heart because I could tell he just barely realized what had happened & the fear hit him late. The first time I had a gun pulled on me was when I was his age too except it wasn't point blank range right in my face. They shot from a distance & I was fine. Plus I KNEW what I was doing. So it was different.

To imagine being an innocent child & staring at a grown man pointing a gun in your face has to be one of the scariest things I can think of.

My brother doesn't deserve the life he's had to live. I at least know that much. You see, I know the shit I went through growing up was bad here & there.. but I could handle that. It hits a lot harder to see other kids struggle through the same shit. I [b]NEVER[/b] want my future kids to get used to that life