Score One for the Amish

I haven’t really been following the awful school shooting in Pennsylvania, but I did read today that the community had decided that some of the money of the charity fund that is being raised for the survivors and relatives should go to the widow of the killer and her children. Bravo for them. It’s a generous, and healthy, way of dealing with tragedy.

I think back to the parents of the victims at Columbine. Some of them reacted in a much more typically middle-class American way, by suing the schools, the police and other government agencies, and the families of the killers. And I thought that was so unfortunate, because, whether merited or not, those efforts were bound to be fruitless. Nothing in the world was going to bring those children back, and lawsuits and the like were only going to keep the wounds open for years to come.

It’s certainly not my place to tell people how to feel, not least when I haven’t walked in their shoes (fortunately). I do hope that when my time comes to grieve, I can keep my heart open a little, and remember that other people suffer too. Nobody has a monopoly on suffering, and sometimes it’s realizing that fact that can help us through.