Senseless Tragedies

My friend's son is an engineering student at Virginia Tech. Thankfully, he is fine, but it scares me to think of everything this young man, who grew up in Northern Virginia, and others from our region have had to endure in their formative teenage years: 9-11, the anthrax scare, the sniper attacks, the seesawing alert levels, and now this massacre. Doodle was only three and paid very little attention to television news when 9-11 happened. She seems to process horrible news well, but I fear that the stress of growing up in today's world will take its toll no matter how hard I work to provide a secure, low stress, protective environment.

In nine short years, Doodle goes off to college. I hope I am sending her out into a better world than the one we live in today. Last week, in a bedtime conversation, Doodle said that she doesn't want to go away to college. I told her that she will always have a home with me; she can go to a local college and live at home if that is what she wants. That satisfied her, and she fell asleep. I hope the next nine years bring no more senseless tragedies. Enough already.