A friend of mine lost a child on Friday to a self-centered monster who, despite whatever issues he had, felt the need to lash out at the world.
I know there will be a lot of hand wringing over how this person should have been handled, how his mental problems lead to this, or how his mother should have been more careful than to have guns that no sane person should have available in their home, no matter what your politics. Personally, it's tough for me to give any level of sympathy to someone who would calculate such an unGodly event, particularly given our connection to this.
My friend lost a beautiful child. Having two of my own, the anguish they are feeling I can only imagine and I feel enormously lucky myself. I even feel a little uneasy for feeling so lucky in contrast to how I feel about their loss. Yet, I always worry a little between the time my children go to daycare and grammar school before I see them at the end of the day when I get home.
What's most important here today is not all the talk of gun control, the killer's mental issues, or how the media absolutely cannot leave this event alone for one minute so people can mourn. The only takeaway is that as parents, these children are our lives, ad these children - theirs and all the others - should be the only ones we think about right now. They are our hope, our joy, the thing that keeps us grounded and the essence of our purpose on this world once we hear their cries. While the death of any person is a sad event, given our need to protect these little people, most of whom are still ignorant of the evils of the world, this loss is unthinkable. Today we should know their names, not his.
When we protect our kids, we protect our best projection of ourselves.
God bless my friend, the family and those other families in their community.