Beyond answers

“Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do & die…” … Alfred, Lord Tennyson, 1809-1892 “Why?” One word. A single utterance. Yet, in and of itself, the most unanswerable question in the universe. It’s a question that we even discourage one another from asking, perhaps because responding is just too hard. How many exasperated parents have resorted to “BECAUSE I SAID SO!” as the appropriate reply to “Why is the sky blue?” or “Why is it wrong to have dessert before dinner?” We are frustrated because, if we are honest with ourselves, we’ll admit that we really don’t know. Yesterday, a young man approached the college my daughter is planning to attend in 11 short months. Dressed in a black trench coat and black boots, he was also sporting a rapid-fire rifle and two other weapons. He opened fire outside the school and then entered the building and continued shooting. He is dead, apparently taking his own life with a shot to the head, during gunfire with police. Why? An 18-year-old girl, Anastasia, who did nothing wrong except go to school like she was supposed to, is dead. Why? Multiple people are in hospital beds, recovering from gunshot wounds, reliving over and over in their minds the horrifying moment that a lunatic randomly aimed his weapon at them and fired. Why? I sat glued to my television yesterday afternoon. My sister had called me from her office, only moments before, and said solemnly, “My girl is not going to Dawson.” She wasn’t referring to her own 8-year-old little girl. She was referring to her niece. My daughter. In our family, the girls belong to all of us. And, yesterday, we felt the sickening panic of wanting to wrap them all in a protective cocoon and never let go. But how do you clip a butterfly’s wings? Tears filling my eyes, I watched the young girls running in fear for their lives. I stared at the college, the nearby shopping plaza, the old Montreal Forum where I shivered through many hockey games with my Dad. Every familiar image stabbed my heart. But for the grace of several months, one of those girls would have been mine. Most of us bring our children into this world because we want them… we need them… and we love them unconditionally. The mother of the shooter has described him today as “a good son.” That is the epitome of unconditional love. But love is not enough. Our children bristle at our rules. They fight our parenting almost every step of the way. Nature sees to it that they grow up, whether we want them to or not. At some point, every parent looks at their child and longs to stop time. “If you can just be three years old forever, I can protect you.” I cannot protect them. I can prepare them, I can guide them to be intelligent, responsible, caring citizens of this world but then, somewhere, a darkness explodes in a young man’s head and he alone holds the power to snuff out my child’s life. Why? Because he has “…an obsession with guns...” Because he wants to die “… in a hail of gunfire.” Because he “has met a handful of people in his life who are decent. But he finds the vast majority to be worthless, no good, conniving, betraying, lying, deceptive.” Because he wants the world to know that “Anger and hatred simmers within me.” He alone can make the decision that the child that means everything to me, means nothing to him. He alone, in a flash of light, can end my world. Why?