Oh, So Very Long Ago

This is a week that will be remembered by most here in the U.S. as a marker of devistation for many. On Monday there was a terrible shooting an the campus of Virgina Tech. If you have been sheltered from this news do a little search and you will have much more information than I will give here.

I am commonly a listener to NPR (National Public Radio) and often forget that it is still playing while there are others in the car. Tuesday I was reminded that it was on by a small voice from the back seat. As we were nearly home from preschool the three-year-old who had spent all day sheltered within the walls of Ms. Megan's class room said "thirty people died." His voice wasn't sorrow-full or reporter-like but questioning. I quickly agreed with his statement, even though the number was incorrect, with a pitiful "yes."

He then asked why they died and the only answer that I could muster was smiply "There was a man who was very sad and he wanted other people to be sad too, so he killed those thirty people." He will have forgotten the awful events he heard reported by the time he's ten or eleven. He'll not, however, be spared from the hearing of such future events.

When I was in kindergarten the U.S. mourned the loss of a group of astronauts when the "Challenger" exploded shortly after it's launch. One year after the Oklahoma City bombing, on the day after a beloved Junior High teacher died following a battle with lukemia, the Colombine shooting occurred. Not long after was a school shooting just six hours away from my hometown. A couple of years after I began a career working with children three planes smashed into buildings filled with people just minding their own business. Two years ago I was blessed to visit Louisana in order to help with a small clean-up effort after hurricaine Katrina passed through the Gulf of Mexico and destroyed thousands of people's homes.

All of these things will be written into textbooks for children of future generations to read. I wonder if someone will be there to tell them the truth that they too are capable of making history. All it takes is a little determination and a bit of firepower and you too can become a face on the news and maybe in a history book for kids just like you to read in U.S. history class.

To quote that great philosopher Jack Johnson "Where'd all the good people go?"