Juxtaposition and heartbreak

Warning-heavy reading to follow.

The juxtaposition between the losses I’ve seen in the past week are hurting my heart right now.  So, I’m writing.  I just feel like putting my thoughts out there into the universe because I can’t let them fester inside.

Photo by Tim Mossholder on Unsplash

Last week, two teens from my kids’ high school died.  One suddenly from an unrevealed cause and the other after a long fight with an illness.  In spite of not having known either teen or their families, I totally lost it in the shower the night I heard about the second child’s passing.  I just couldn’t bear the thought of two families mourning and grieving the loss of their children.  In spite of not knowing these families, my heart was breaking for them.  The idea of never kissing their kid goodnight, never again celebrating milestones with them and watching them grow and become who they were meant to be…it just was too much for me for a few minutes, and I sobbed on the floor of my shower (see previous post on shower therapy).  My nostrils were completely blocked and my eyes stayed puffy for a good two days.  I know I had no logical reason to cry for the loss of a stranger, but I simply imagined losing a child, as a mother.  

I knew a little about the family of the teen who succumbed to illness.  That family has supported their child and endured years and years of treatments, hospitals and the mental anguish that (I imagine) comes with having a severely ill child.  

And now, both families are certainly feeling heartbreak.

Turn now to Michigan.  There we find two parents who purchased a gun for their 15 year old child as a Christmas gift, who then took the life of four other children.  As of this writing, those parents are fugitives of the law, having disappeared upon learning that they were to be charged with manslaughter for their part in causing this tragedy.  These parents flippantly remarked about the “gift” of this weapon to their son and made a spectacle of it, as did the boy, on social media.  They disregarded what could be called nothing else but a warning sign-nay, more like a screaming siren-of their son’s deranged mindset.  Now FOUR families are feeling heartbreak and grief.  Four families are burying their children.  Four families are forced to recreate, reimagine and rebuild their families’ lives!  

The nearly unbearable juxtaposition is…parents here who did everything to support and care for and comfort their child that lay dying, versus the parents there, who did not exercise good judgement or act with due diligence regarding the seriousness and weighty responsibility of owning a deadly weapon, and then tried to make light of the seriousness of the situation they helped to create with their son, which resulted in the death of 4 kids.  And now four families are mourning their loss thanks to these parents and their poorly guided, screwed up child.  And these parents are running from the law.  It’s stomach-turning.  My brain and heart cannot reconcile the disparity.  I have no more words…

Hug your littles, folks. Hug them tight.

All the love,

Christine