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I have received some excellent and thought-provoking comments about Dora’s brief stay in respite care while I had my surgery. I will answer the questions and respond to the comments in a post in the near future … but this morning I am compelled to address yet another school shooting tragedy.
I was actually presenting a luncheon RAD workshop to over a hundred Rotary Club members at the very time the Virginia Tech shooting was occurring. Those folks returned to their jobs for the rest of the afternoon and sadly, everything I had just said was reinforced in the craziness of that campus shooting.
Now here we go again. I heard one of many news commentators (or perhaps it was a call-in guest) wonder why these kids and young adults who are so emotionally disturbed did not receive or respond to mental health intervention. Well, perhaps that is because there was no appropriate intervention available, or because the child refused to do the work, or because everyone around the mentally ill person refused to acknowledge what they were seeing.
This shooting shakes me to the core for many reasons, but especially because it is the university that Kyle and Marie just graduated from last December. They spent several years there. Kyle was a TA and might know some of the victims. Marie’s cousin is attending NIU and he is a freshman. He called Marie’s aunt and uncle yesterday to tell them he was OK, but also told them four of his friends were shot.
How is a parent supposed to deal with this? We all know we can lose our lives in vehicular accidents or due to unexpected illnesses. No one wants to think about that, but we all understand that bad things happen to good people. But this rash of campus shootings … It certainly adds one more item to the lengthy plus column as to why I am homeschooling Beth right now. I know I can’t protect her indefinitely from this kind of tragedy—I can’t protect Steph who is still in college, or Marie who will soon be a classroom teacher.
I will focus on what I can do. And what I can do is mobilize folks like those of you reading this blog, and together we can raise our voices and demand the services we need … such as therapeutic respite care, which I will address again shortly. Please join me if you are comfortable in praying for the families and victims of this latest tragedy.
Incomprehensible grief
I have been thinking of Kyle and Marie. How are they doing? Please give them a hug from us and we’re sending up prayers.
I’m with you on this one Nancy, how does one deal with such senseless killings? It really shakes me because I’m currently attending the University of New Mexico, which has about 30,000 students and a very similar layout like the most recent college. I don’t like to think about the what “if’s” but they do happen to cross my mind when there really is no telling if or when something like this is going to happen. My prayers are with yours.
Nancy…you may want to check out the school shooting that took place this week in Oxnard, CA. It was a very sad case of a foster child being shot by another student in the classroom. Once again, the proper services were not in place to protect the victims (and there are many).
Services are a big issue. I raised a sociopath. I remember fighting to keep him confined. I was told that he “did not have a mental illness, but a personality disorder and if he killed someone, the criminal court would deal with that.” I commented that that wouldn’t make whoever he killed any less dead. But, the facility psychiatrist felt that since no meds would help, and he was nice and polite, that he deserved to be free.
Every time one of these mass killings happen, I think about the killers parents. I wonder how many knew. I wonder how many fought for help and were turned away.
It’s rather scary to think about.
Lucy
Lucy, you’re right, it is very frightening–and sad.
My condolences go out to all the families involved. A neighbor told me that they lived very close to this school before they relocated to our area and that they knew a few kids who went to the school. They’re pretty shook up.