Something horrible happened today. A 20 year old killed his mother, then went to her kindergarten classroom and killed her 20 students, the principal, 5 other adults, and then himself. There are a few injured and in the hospital. Right now, you're too young to understand anything on the tv, and by the time you're old enough to understand, today will be nothing but a date some people remember and there might be a 20 second news blurb on local news. The whole thing is sad and senseless. All anyone can do is tell their kids they love them and hope they've done the best they can to teach them right from wrong and made sure that they know they can always ask for help if they need it. Which brings me to lesson 25...
I'm sure that over the next weeks and months there is going to be a lot of talk about what should have been done, and what needs to be done. Everything from gun control to mental health services. More of this, less of that. The truth is, I don't think anyone has an answer. Out of the 2 of us, I'm more of a believer in gun control than your dad, but I also don't believe the answer is to do away with all guns. The point is, everyone is a "Monday Quarterback" after things like this. Everyone is always convinced they had the answer to prevent the situation, or the perfect action to stop it before it got worse. That's all crap. Sometimes horrible, awful things happen. Sometimes there is no reason. Sometimes there is a reason, it's just not good enough. If anyone knew how to prevent these things 100% of the time we'd all live in a utopia. That doesn't mean we should shrug things like this off. Always know there are options, people who have mental health needs should be given that help. I would hope if you ever thought you or anyone you knew thought doing something so outrageous that you'd come to us and ask for help. Sometimes people just snap, it's no one's fault but their own. I'm sure more than once the parenting of the person will be brought up. I'm sure that the shooter's mother always thought "not my kid" when things like this happen. I doubt any mother could look at her child and think they were capable of it. Sometimes life just gives you the questions, and not the answers. It's not fair, and it's not comforting. All you can do is hug each other a little tighter and resolve to do what you can to keep it from happening again.
