Oklahoma = Newtown? Yes, For Me, A Little

All I could think about was Newtown.

Glued to the television once more, I prayed that the children would be found.  As the first few were dug out, I thought, maybe, this time, a miracle.  But when I went to bed, 37 were dead, and seven were children.  These children drowned.

Once again I thought what it would be like to be a child and know you were going to die.  I don't know that a crazed gunman is any worse than a wind that sucks you under a pile of rubble, then floods you with water until you can't breathe while you can't move one part of your body to get away, and so, you slowly suffocate as the water rushes into your mouth and nose, and then, please, God, peace, before death.

I turned the TV on early this morning, hoping for good news, but even more children had died.  As of 7 a.m., it was up to 20.  I know you can't bring religion, and God, into this, but I do wonder sometimes.  Why do the children have to die?

I watched one mother find her son and sobbing, fling herself at him, only to realize the teacher who had saved him was there, too, immediately dropping her arms from around her son, and clutching the teacher, "You saved him!  You saved him!" while the little first grader kind of wandered around, looking lost.

I saw Newtown, here, too.

All the scenes of the parents desperately hugging their living children only made the ones of the parents searching in anguish for theirs harder to take.  You knew there were parents who were never going to find theirs alive again.

I don't know what makes me take all these horrible things that happen to children so personally.  I suppose most parents do.  Once you have a child, you see him in every devastated classroom, or split-open school, or anywhere terrible things hurt and take the lives of children.

It just shouldn't happen.  But that's life and it does, and we have to make some sort of peace with it all.  Just as, in the end, we couldn't prevent Newtown, we can't stop weather either.  What do they call it, in insurance terms?  Acts of nature?  A little too benign for what happened in Moore.








Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Don't Wash Your Chicken and Other Food Safety Myths

I remember when I first heard this.  Don't wash your chicken , before you cook it?  I ignored it.  But over time, I began to realize it's true.  Washing it spreads deadly (or at least sick-making) bacteria.  Really. “You should assume that if you have chicken, you have either Salmonella or Campylobacter bacteria on it, if not both,”Dr. Jennifer Quinlan, an associate professor at Drexel University, told newswise.com.  These two bacteria, she noted, are the leading causes of food-borne illness. “If you wash it, you’re more likely to spray bacteria all over the kitchen and yourself," she said. And the rinse water you've been using? It's not hot enough to kill bacteria anyway. Washing raw poultry was a common unsafe practice in all the groups she studied for a documentary on safe cooking conditions, with some minor cultural differences in the method of washing. People are very attached to the idea of washing raw poultry, she told newswise.com. “Some think they’re
Read more

Take Herbal Supplements? Even Green Tea Extract Can Lead to Liver Damage

Take herbal supplements? You might want to listen up. A new study is warning that new information is showing that some supplements may damage the liver, along with over the counter drugs and even those prescribed by physicians, according to newswise.com. The rate of drug-induced liver injury (DILI), a rare adverse drug reaction which is challenging to diagnose -- and which can lead to jaundice, liver failure and even death -- is increasing more and more.  Experts put it down to the overwhelming use of herbal supplements and other drugs in the last 10 years.  “A lot of consumers have a preconceived notion that if it’s a natural product, it must be safe. But that is not necessarily the case,” the Web site quotes Herbert Bonkovsky, MD, FACG, co-author of the guidelines. “Most of these products are not well-regulated and have very little oversight. Traces of heavy metals and prescription drugs have even been found in some herbal and dietary supplements. We encourage patients to
Read more

Need the ER? Pray Your Doc Plays Video Games

We're all so used to picking on our kids for playing video games but the next time he's in the ER, you just might be happy that doctors do it, too. According to new research, video games improve doctors' recognition and triage of severe trauma patients, newswise.com reports. Playing an adventure video game featuring a fictitious, young emergency physician treating severe trauma patients was better than text-based learning at priming real doctors to quickly recognize the patients who needed higher levels of care, according to a new trial led by the  University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine .  The results held, even though doctors assigned to the game enjoyed it less than those assigned to traditional, text-based education. This indicates that if game enjoyment can be improved, the already favorable results might be enhanced, the web site notes.  “Physicians must make decisions quickly and with incomplete information. Each year, 30,000 preventable deaths occur
Read more