Tragedy, Vulnerability, Children - How to Explain?

I sat in my car, in the Target parking lot, and cried yesterday, listening to our local radio morning show discuss Monday's tragedy at Virginia Tech. I can only imagine the unspeakable heartache of the parents, family and friends of the victims. My heart, condolences and prayers go out to them.

More than ever, as grown-ups, as parents, it is so impossible to comprehend this kind of random, senseless violence, and our vulnerability. How do we protect ourselves and our children? How do we maintain optimism and a positive outlook for the future? How do we explain these events to our children? Make that, how do we discuss these events with our children? There is no explanation.

I've been talking to my twelve-year-old son about the tragedy, on our brief ride together to school each day, a treasured ten minutes to enjoy with my oldest child -- my baby who is oh-so-quickly turning into a man.

When my children were younger, I thought I just needed to get us all safely through those difficult infant and toddler years: when I had to shadow them on the playground to keep them from falling over or picking up something yucky -- boo boos and germs were my biggest fears.

Now all of that seems so silly, so naive. When I was The Shadow with my babies, protecting them from anything and everything, I never realized the dangers and responsibility would exponentially increase as they got older; that there would come a time when the dangers are so varied and immense, so unpredictable and inconceivable; when the confluence of free will and independence would leave us all so very vulnerable.

Still, I talk with him, and it's difficult conversation with a child. I give him the facts, which he needs to know, because he'll hear them inevitably, and although he is way too big and cool to say anything, I can hear with my mother's heart and understanding of my child, the fear: "Could something like this happen to me?"

And I want so badly to reassure him, to make him those promises that were so easy when he was a baby: "No, nothing like that could ever happen here, to you, to us. I will always protect you." But he and I both know that's not true. Wishful thinking.

We've been through this before, with the universal tragedy of 9/11; with the nightmare of Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath of anger, violence and helplessness. Seven years ago, a madman killed his family and went on a shooting rampage in two office buildings in Atlanta, killing nine innocent people...while we watched the news and waited in fear all day at home because that was Daddy's office building, and he and his employees were evacuated from their offices and barricaded in a meeting room, hiding under tables, calling out on their cellphones to reassure, to update, to give and receive information about the extended manhunt for the killer, which ended six hours later with his suicide as the police were closing in...

So I don't tell my son "that could never happen to us."

What I do tell him, and I try to remember myself:

1. Tragedies such as these are not normal, and we are generally safe.
   The world is a good place, full of love and hope.


2. Parents and adults go to great lengths to protect children in schools -- that's why he goes through a metal detector every morning, at the entrance to his middle school in urban Atlanta. That's why the doors are locked, and we have police on campus and visitors have to sign in at the office and wear VISITOR passes. I remind him of these same and similar safeguards in Daddy's office, in our condo building, in the big buildings downtown, at the arena and theatres, at the airport.
   
   "It doesn't always work, does it?"
   "No, but most of the time it helps to keep us safe."


3. I tell my son to be aware in the world. To be a friend to everyone; to do his best to make the world a better place; to reach out and give friendship and a ready smile; but to know that there are people out there who are sick and disturbed, angry, hurt, stressed out; and to recognize if someone is acting strangely, making you uncomfortable, certainly if you see weapons or if someone is talking violently or making threats, anything that makes you uncomfortable, to move away from the situation, to talk to adults (parents and teachers) about it, to beware.

I don't know what else to tell him, or myself. Perhaps one thing more: Life is precious, and a wonderful adventure. We get so caught up in the little stuff sometimes. We never know when or how we might lose somebody, how much time we have.

One of my children once asked me, I think it was after the death of our dog, with sudden realization, great fear and concern: "Mommy, are you going to die?"

It's hard to come up with an answer to a question like that, out of the blue, from your child. I did the best I could, and it's the same answer I would give today:

"Not today, I hope. Today, we're going to live, love & laugh, and make the best of another beautiful day in the world. I love you."

That is, after all, I think, the best we can do.

Live, Love & Laugh.