The Loved Ones

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Just as I thought, yesterday was an irritating day.

More than irritating...I keep thinking...sad.

Started the day with a guy who texted me to say that the shooting in Dallas was a conspiracy to go on a gun grab across the country.

All part of an 8-year plan.

I didn't answer that...didn't even humor the guy.

Then I heard a news report featuring a relative of one of the people gunned down in Dallas.

That certainly didn't do much for my mood.

But the poor woman said something that made me strongly consider the deep hurt.

She said that to all the news outlets it was just about how many people that die.

5 dead...12 wounded.

And that's all it means to some people who are keeping score.

"No one knows how this will devastate us," the woman said.

And that was what caught my heart.

We have heard a whole lot of numbers lately.

How many in Orlando?

What was the count in that church?

The school in Connecticut?

The Colorado movie theatre?

Fort Hood?

So many more.

In each one we heard a number.

I considered how devastating the death of a loved one can be.

I've been there.

Most people have.

It's not something that people 'get over'.

The devastation lasts for years...

...for lifetimes.

A single death changes the lives of so many people.

These victims have spouses, children, parents, friends, nieces, nephews, aunts, uncles and cousins.

People who desperately love them!

"More people die in cars," someone will write to prove an uncaring point about how people are bound to die anyways, whether they're shot, or piled up.

And I'm sorry, but if I hear one more person talk about prayer getting us through such a tragedy...

Prayer is fine.

We need more than that.

Because when you count the death toll at one of these scenes you have to think about the thousand people who are going to miss the man or woman who died in yet another senseless act of violence.

I will say a prayer for the loved ones.

Then I'm going to try...

...again...

To not let the anger and fear in.

That's all I can do, I guess.

Because evidently no one else knows what to do either.

Remember their loved ones.

Forget the mentally ill who create the destruction and heartbreak.

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