When Tragedy Strikes Kids

My heart is sad. You send your kids... your babies off to school. You entrust others to watch over, care for, and feed them. It would never occur to me that food my child may eat would be tainted. How does this happen? How are people that irresponsible and careless? That something so preventable would kill 22 children and leave several others seriously sick?

As I read a recent article, it was difficult not to cry. As a mom, this breaks my heart. It's in a different country and for some purposes a different world. Yet to me, it's so real. It's something that could happen in our own backyard. Yes, it's easy to say it wouldn't happen here in the U.S. But did we think the Oklahoma City bombing would occur here? Or 9-11? If those things happened in another country, would we find ourselves saying, "Oh that wouldn't happen here." Well those things did happen here! So it's not out of the realm of possibilities that tainted lunches could happen here.

I remember where I was for both of those events. I gasped as I sat in Wendy's hearing an announcement over the intercom in my university's Student Union. I couldn't believe someone just bombed a building and so many kids died. I'll never forget eating bite sized hash browns as the bomb in Oklahoma City was just miles away from my campus.

Then with 9-11, I woke up from a daze with my brother yelling at me, shocked I was still asleep. Having no idea what he was talking about, he kept saying, "Where is mom?"

Being sound asleep, I had no idea. I just knew my flight attendant mom was on a trip. Once my brother filled me in, sheer panic filled every ounce of my body. She never told me where she was flying to. I called her repeatedly and kept getting her voicemail. I left her a message of "You better call me back asap" out of fear more than anything else.

When she did, I was finally able to breathe normally again, as I tried to wrap my brain around the massacre that happened all morning. How could people do this to us? Why would they do this to us?

Even if tainted lunches never happen here (and of course I hope it doesn't), my heart still breaks for these helpless, precious kids and their families. Their moms, dads, and siblings who now have to find some kind of light in this in order to move on. The parents who have to make funeral arrangements between their emotions and tears. The siblings who will now grow up with one less brother or sister. How do you make peace with this? How do you come to terms with this?

I don't know. I do know my lack of sleep and exhaustio
"issues" are nothing compared to this tragedy and the families' pain. My heart goes out to them. My heart breaks for them. And my heart holds out hope they will muster the energy to take one day at a time. One hour at a time. One minute at a time.

To think those 22 kids would be alive if someone had taken one extra minute to do their job properly. That's the true tragedy. As you go about your day today, be thankful for what you have. Take an extra moment to kiss your kids, say something nice, or hold them a little longer. Then give a few minutes to pray for these families who now have to deal with the worst kind of tragedy.

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