We Get An Extra Day

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It's funny, but I've always had the ability to really get down about something that happens in another part of the world to people I don't know. I've heard that compassion and empathy are good traits, but the older I get, the more I wonder.

That shooting near Cleveland really gets to me.

My heart sank when I saw the two words together - "School Shooting" - can there be two worse words in our modern language? And I say modern because it wasn't part of our language as we grew. The worst that might happen back in the day was a fight in the hall.

Kids grow up a lot quicker now, I guess, and they gun each other down.

They gun each other down!!!!!

On Tuesday the news kept trickling in...a second student died...there is no apparent motive...the kid was a loner...the kid was being bullied...a third student died...parents running to the school...kids racing down the hall...teachers with their lives on the line...no metal detectors at the school.

No metal detectors at the school?

A kid once brought in a firecracker when I was in the 8th grade. He blew up a toilet. The principal was horrified with the senseless act.

These administrators pray for little old firecrackers now.

I thought of my kids going off to school on a daily basis. We protect them so much here and in the car and when they are with friends. We send them off to school hoping that they learn and study and get it in order for years to come.

We don't think of them running down the hall in terror, being chased by a deranged classmate.

"Have a good day," I told both of my boys on Tuesday morning. When I said it, it crossed my mind that they are heading off into a very different world every day. It's funny but as they age I try to imagine what I thought of as important when I was their age.

In 9th grade I collected autographs, just started liking girls, and played JV basketball. Guns were something out of a detective show like Mannix or Kojak. Hell, I never even saw those guys carry one.

There was no way that the kid next to me might have one.

No possible way.

I guess I don't know the world my kids live in nowadays.

And that in itself is a scary thought.

If we have to live an extra day this year, here's praying that it's a peaceful one.

Something tells me it might not be, and that hurts my heart.

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