When senseless tragedy strikes, like so many others I find myself asking why? I look up for answers and I look inside too. I wish I had something profound, comforting or healing to say. I don't.
I thought I'd come here tonight to write about a weekend filled with both joy and pain as family came together to say goodbye to an uncle...a brother...a friend, and then goodbye to one another. I can't.
I can turn off the television coverage and tune in to my children. Not because I want to shelter them from what has happened. At 12 and 8, that is almost impossible, but I see no value in subjecting them to the terror in the endless barrage of rhetoric and carnage. They are children, but sadly they no longer live in a place of protected innocence. I feel as a parent it would be just as irresponsible for me to allow them to believe in universal altruism. Not all people are kind and good, and they need to know that as much as I wish that weren't the case.
I cannot stop thinking that this is a near daily reality for children in many corners of our world. I hear these stories and I feel moved, but from such a distance. When egregious acts occur on our own soil, we no longer have the luxury of feeling disconnected, insulated or safe.
I'm trying to put the focus on the good that emerged today. The first responders were fast and fearless. Tragedies like these can create heroes out of ordinary people. There were many. They also can bring people together. That is what must happen.
I'm going to hug my kids a little tighter tonight and together we'll say prayers for today's victims, all the residents of a city I love visiting, and another angel in Heaven.
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