Girl’s Death Changes a Community : In the face of such violence, maybe becoming stronger is the best we can do

“Amanda, you opened our eyes and our hearts.”

That note on a chain-link fence in a North Park neighborhood sums up a community’s response to the killing of 9-year-old Amanda Gaeke.

Handwritten notes, flowers, prayers, drawings and teddy bears fill about 120 feet of fence near where the girl’s body was found Oct. 14.

Her death changed the community. More parents are taking their children to and from the school Amanda attended. There will be tightened security at an upcoming Halloween festival. Parents all over the city are more cautious.

The spontaneous and growing memorial at the fence shows how many hearts Amanda’s death opened. There, next to a bus stop at 32nd and Redwood streets, the grief of classmates, neighbors and strangers lies exposed.

Virtually all of the notes are addressed to the little girl, as if the authors hope they can somehow ease her pain in death, when they couldn’t in life.

A white cross fashioned from fencing stands planted in a painted coffee can. Nearby is a large cardboard cutout of an angel--or is it of Amanda? A friend mourns the loss of a hide-and-seek playmate. A note with youthful handwriting pledges $20 toward funeral expenses. And Halloween decorations are a grim reminder that Amanda--and perhaps many other children--will not be trick-or-treating this year.

One mourner observes that Amanda’s name comes from the Latin word for love . A computer-generated note wishes the killer “unending hell.” A less sophisticated message spray-painted on the sidewalk says simply, “In memory of Amanda.”

But there’s also a pledge to the fourth-grader: The neighborhood will “watch out for our children and protect them.”

In the face of unspeakable violence, perhaps this is all we can do. Maybe opening our eyes and hearts wider will help find Amanda’s killer along with the person who killed 9-year-old Laura Arroyo in June.

But perhaps the spirit that produced such a creative outpouring of love for a little girl can also be used to make urban neighborhoods safer, to help rid the city of the drug-related crime that apparently led to the deaths of two other innocent children this summer, 13-year-old Diane Rosalez and 11-year-old Dwayne Maurice Gilbert.

Not every parent can afford to move to the relative security of suburbia, nor should they have to.

The community came together to mourn Amanda’s death. If it works together, perhaps other children will be spared.