Senselessness and love

I woke up this morning to the news of the shooting in Colorado - thoughts of Columbine came to me but this time it was a bit more personal.  This shooting wasn't in a school but in a public theatre - anyone could have been in that theatre. 

A good friend of mine, Teresa Yohon, has often been one of my research partners and is a co-writer on a number of articles, and her husband and son live in Fort Collins, Colorado.  They also own a condo in Denver - Teresa often works in Denver.  My thoughts immediately turned to them.  I texted Teresa and received a text back saying that her family was ok but she knew that quite a number of people she worked with had direct or indirect involvement with this tragedy.

Senseless, stupid, insane - why are there guns and ammunition so easily available?  How and why can people be so desperate that they need to inflict this kind of pain on so many people?  It is something I will never understand.

But I am here with my grandson and his mother and father (my son Mark) and I  look at all of them and hope that the love they have received is enough for them to resist this kind of retaliation against life.

I am heart sick for the people who were killed and injured and I grieve with their families and friends - senseless and so unexpected.

But I also have the parents and family and friends of the perpetrator in mind - how they must feel - going back over every bit of interaction with this man trying to figure out what their role was in this tragedy.  I can't help but think that they did their best but that it just wasn't enough.  I don't know how I would be able to cope