This week all I, as many of you, have been able to think about is the Virginia Tech shooting. I haven’t been thinking about the students as much as their parents, though, perhaps because I can no longer see the world from any other than a parent’s perspective, no matter how hard I try. It's selfish in that it can blind me to other people's points of view, and it can be paralyzing when something tragic happens.

Sending your child out into the world, whether it's to a new preschool or daycare or college, is harder than I ever thought it would be. It has nothing to do with trusting your child and everything to do with knowing how cruel the world can be. At the same time, completely sheltering a child, keeping her inside and protecting her from experiences, ultimately cripples her to function in society as an adult. As Dana from Mombian
so aptly puts it:

“It is easy, in the face of tragedies like today’s, to have that faith shaken. The family and friends of the victims certainly have, and understandably so. Those of us less closely affected must step in and redouble our efforts to work for justice and peace, to teach our children kindness and integrity. Many of us are offering thoughts or prayers tonight for the victims, their families, and friends. May our actions tomorrow be for us all.”

In order to give your child all the gifts of experience, you have to let them go out into a world that you know damn well is full of perverts, criminals and psychopaths. That is the hardest part of parenting for me, harder even than the not sleeping and the wiping off of my kisses.

I remember the night I brought the little angel home from the hospital. Overcome with hormones and lack of sleep, I spent the better part of an hour lying in my bed and berating myself for having brought a child into the world because I realized after she was born that if anything happened to her, it would bring me to my knees. I was mad at myself for creating a being that I loved more than I loved myself. I finally understood as I stood over her crib willing her to breathe all night that I had set myself up for a bigger hurt than any other relationship would bring me if anything happened to her. I've always known I will pull through the death of my parents, and there have been times when my beloved was traveling frequently that I had to remind myself that I would survive if something happened to him, God forbid. The only person I've never really come to that conclusion about is the little angel.

And so, when I hear the sirens of an ambulance or hear about the death of a two-year-old or a campus shooting, all I can think about is the pit in the stomachs of all those parents. Those parents who may have just had their children ripped away from them too soon. We are supposed to die before our children die, because the death of a child is the hardest cross to bear.

My heart goes out to those who have lost their friends and teachers. I pray for all of Virginia Tech and the surrounding community. But when I cried in the car on the way to work, it was for the parents who have to face life without their child in it, the child they thought they'd sent to a safe place for that first foray into adulthood away from the nest. I am so sorry.