The Male Mind

I couldn't take my eyes off the children, as Mance and I sat dining Saturday night in a family restaurant. The giggles, the cute faces, the curly heads of hair. My mind churned with the massacre at Sandy Hook School in Newtown, Connecticut the day before.  Now one ran past me to get an ice cream cone . . . was she about six, I wondered? And for the umpteenth time I was unable to grasp what Adam Lanza had done. And why?  The heavy, sinking feeling in my stomach had lingered since the first news broke. Oh my God, what are their parents going through? The other children?

It was effortless to connect with the stunned faces appearing on TV. We have two adult children. Then as time passed, I saw not only the nation but people all around the world drawn into the emotion of the moment. We are different peoples, of all ages, nationalities and colors, who pray differently and speak different languages, yet we all experience grief and sadness. And many of us carry the grief of loss in our own experiences.   

As much as we seem divided by our ideologies, political preferences, income, status, accomplishments and beliefs, at our core we are one, emotionally.  How healthy it would be for our unity, if we expressed our emotions more openly, as we are now with the people in Newtown.