My Daughter's 21st

It's hard to believe that my daughter turned 21 this weekend.  Amazing.  Feels like only yesterday . . . .  ah really, it does.  But anyway, she's all grown up now.  Hard to let go but time to give her more space. 

The weekend started out with tragedy in the news . . . . with the elementary children in Connecticut . . . . no words, the ongoing story is so heartbreaking. 

So on the weekend that my girl (now a woman) turns 21, I hear the heart wrenching news about little ones taken from life at the place they trust most . . . their grade school.  It's hard to fathom, and not only their lives taken, but the for the classmates who amazingly survived, their feeling of safety and innocence perhaps did not.  They may bear emotional and mental scars that will remain with them forever.  To think of the parents, siblings and family members who lost children .  . . as well as the couragous adults who stayed with them and tried to protect and shelter them, some of those adults perished while trying, and others held on.  Ugggh.     

How can the parents go on?  And the stories of courage, along with shock and grief, that have been voiced all weekend on the news is hard to believe.  It seems the most precious times, like those just before Christmas, are brightened and darkened by intense happenings. 

In our own lives, as parents, somehow we've been lucky, and seen our daughter, whose beginning as a tiny premie baby . ...  seemed so precarious . . . so "touch and go"  . . . . yet she miraculously survived.  It's with a mother's heart that I'm grateful for her growth into adulthood, and at the same time, saddened by knowing that some other parents haven't been so lucky.

In these days of sadness and gratitude, it seems trite to say, but so true, that we all really never know how many years, months, days or hours we have left to spend with our loved ones.  Every day is a blessing and asking "why" on the hard, tragic events seldom leads to inner peace. 

Instead, I'd like to consider the advice of children's TV host Mr. Fred Rogers who said, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, "Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” ― Fred Rogers

He also said, “If you could only sense how important you are to the lives of those you meet; how important you can be to the people you may never even dream of. There is something of yourself that you leave at every meeting with another person.”