Suffer the Children

Well, I was just a week into a self-imposed time out, simply to take a break from dkos and much more, and then this happens.  Can there be a sadder, more excruciating story than what is transpiring in central Texas?  To me there isn’t, and I do not even have children.  Those poor little girls — seeing some of their photos just rips your heart out.  They are the weakest among us and, as such, the most vulnerable to the failures of adults to act responsibly to protect them.  Which adults who failed them is not the purpose of this writing; I am just unable to comprehend such tragedy.  Now, sending kids to summer camp with other kids of a similar age is usually a good thing for developmental and spiritual purposes.  I did that myself on a couple of occasions.  But no one can possibly envision doing this and then not seeing your child come home again.  As my Memorial Day diary reflecting on my neighbor’s son being KIA in Vietnam suggests, it cannot get any worse than losing a child.

As I said above, I did not have children, and that is probably for the best (my wife once said so herself).  That is because I could never survive the loss of a child.  It would kill me.