The difference is the unthinkable didn't happen in "those" moments when we were "that" parent.
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My heart aches. It breaks. I feel like an emotional wet sack right now. You might be wondering "what tragedy is she going to touch on?" There's been so many recently....tragically.
It's all of them. The gorilla and the 3-year-old, the shootings in Orlando, the alligator and the 2-year-old, but before that it was the boy and the dock, and before that it was the little one and the tractor and before that and before that and before that....
Parents have been stricken with tragic events since the birth of the first child. Seriously - it's in the Bible. Cain and Abel. If Facebook had been around back then, Adam and Eve would have been taken to town - "I can't believe they didn't see the sibling issues before this." "Cain should have slaughtered them for obviously not loving him enough." "They should have been buried with their son." Or if you are more a New Testament person, how about when the parents of Jesus lost him. For three days. Can you imagine the backlash in today's society? Headline: Parents lose child of God during annual festival. And the comments: "The mother was chosen by God yet she can't keep track of him? The devil should have his way with her." "Of course they lost him - a carpenter and an unemployed woman? I'm sure they just wanted to party on their own so they left him with relatives." I'm sure some people back in those days did express disapproval and disgust.
But in today's world with the immediate access to news and tragedies and news outlets posting them on social media with that "comment" button so accessible, the shade can be thrown quickly, easily, and brutally. Judgement is immediate before anything other than a headline is known.
Oh - don't get me wrong and don't kid yourself - we aren't more judgmental nowadays than our parents or grandparents or great-grandparents were. It's that there is more we can judge and a bigger audience with which we can share our judgements. Growing up, if I didn't approve of something someone else did, I told my friends, maybe my parents, maybe my siblings and that's where the circle ended. With social media lending access to hundreds if not thousands of "friends" who would obviously want to hear our opinions, our circle becomes much larger and louder. Links can be shared with emoticons and 140 characters galore.
We don't have to think about how our words might affect the person we are using them against because we don't know that person. They don't live in our town, we don't go to school with them or their kids, we won't see them at the store. We have anonymity without having to hide ourselves. We can scroll through and catch a headline then read a couple comments and add our own two cents then move on. We don't have to see the real lives behind the headline.
Most of us weren't there in the life altering moments when the mother in Cincinnati realized her child was not by her side where she last saw him but rather under the gaze of a 450-pound gorilla.
Most of us weren't there in the split second the father thought his two year old had slipped into the water only to realize he hadn't fallen but rather 6 foot alligator was snatching him away.
I was not there. You were not there. This time.
We all have moments though. We have those seconds we run back into the house to grab our phone or a water bottle or some other mundane item and leave the kids playing in the front. Most of our children don't run into the street in those split seconds, but they could.
We have those moments when we close our eyes at the pool enjoying the sounds of the children playing and not fighting and the feel warmth of the sun. Most of our children don't swallow a mouthful of water and start panicking in those moments, but they could.
We have times when we rush bedtime so we can finish dishes or work or just have a moment with our spouse. Most of our children don't fall asleep never to wake up again, but they could.
It could happen. It could. To you or me or to your best friend or a perfect stranger. It could happen to anyone. This is life. This is not the game of life, this is not a movie, this is not the latest novel. This is real, true, life.
Shit happens. Tragic, crazy, gut wrenching shit.
And it could be you. Because you aren't perfect and neither are your children and neither is the world. You can control your actions, you can try to control your children's actions, but you cannot control other people's actions. You can't stop the crazy who blasts out a nightclub. You can't stop the plane from going down. You can't stop the wild animal from realizing he's at Disneyworld and that's not a small rodent. You can't stop the world. So you can't stop the shit from happening to you.
That means you shouldn't take every opportunity to comment, meme, judge the people in the headlines.
Try praying for them instead.
Try praying for yourself.
Try praying for your children and your children's children.
Be thankful it wasn't you and pray that God wraps the ones it was in His arms.
Who cares who is behind the story? It doesn't matter what they do for a living or where they are from. Tragedy has struck them at their core. That is what matters. They are human and that is what matters.
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