Today is my 35th birthday, which is fun. I am living an awesomely fantastic life. I have been surrounded by wonderful and loving people for all of my years and have had unimaginably beautiful experiences and adventures. Today is just one day of 12, 783, but a birthday represents the completion of a larger cycle and is a time to imagine the past and remember the future. I have been so loved in life and I want to give it all back and more.
And yet, somebody else can feel so traumatized by life that he would walk into a school with guns and murder innocent people. Children. I can’t even begin to fathom how bad this person’s life must have felt for a massacre to seem like a solution. Sadness and Hate overcame him and he embodied it, drawing others into his mental state, provoking the Darkness in all of us. Life was Evil to this man. Everybody else, whose Life was Good, suddenly felt pain and suffering he had manifested; it must feel powerful to have the world curse your name…
But as we process the shock and awe of this attack, and feel the vacuum of depression sinking in, we are naturally reminded of the ones we love and we love them a little bit more. Tragedies, like birthdays, are time for reflection on life and our unpredictable world. The future only exists in theory and chaos can take us anytime; this is all we know absolutely. But the underlying understanding of our delicate and ephemeral existence is what gives life meaning and purpose. The tiny chance that each time you say goodbye to a friend or family member might be Forever makes our time together truly precious. Be it by evil actions or natural disasters or circumstance or health, life always ends. All we control are the choices we make and the relationships we maintain. If love is guiding, life is good.
With love, compassion and deepest condolences to the victims and families of Newtown, Connecticut.