on my soapbox

From the sidelines we always know exactly what should have been done. And in hindsight we can right every wrong. Or we can point fingers. Or destroy ourselves with guilt.

If I didn't play soccer during my first trimester maybe I would have carried my child longer. If only I didn't go out dancing during my 18th week, the night before the doctors placed me on strict bed-rest.  If only I'd heeded the warnings and truly understood what it meant to be high risk...

I know all about guilt. And how destructive it can be.

I've also been tempted by blame.  I could blame the woman who happened to be working the maternity desk the night I showed up with my water broken, with my 24 week baby on the way. We waited fifteen minutes before the emergency rush began. Fifteen minutes is not two hours but when a baby weighing less than two pounds is trapped in your birth canal unable to breathe, fifteen minutes is a lifetime.

Fifteen minutes is oxygen deprivation, brain damage and cerebral palsy.

Once the medical staff realized the situation they generated a frenzy of coordinated action. One of the assistants told our family they performed the fastest C-section delivery he ever witnessed. Our perinatologist, woken at three am, arrived just in time to save my son. He told us later, if he had not recently moved closer to the hospital, Elias would not have survived.

For every "what if" that could alter a situation for the better there is a parallel "what if" that could change it for the worst. Guilt and blame will not reverse time.

Guilt and blame will not bring anyone back.

Not Professor Kevin Granata, a dad, a coach, and one of the top five biomechanics researchers for his work with cerebral palsy. (Who knows where his work would have led?) Nor any of the other victims of the massacre at Virginia Tech. All loved. All needed.

All tragically lost. 

We are not omniscient gods capable of predicting tragic situations. I can't don my cape and reverse the spin of the world.

All I can do is grieve, as I slowly replace guilt with acceptance, blame with forgiveness, fear with love.  And in a culture fueled by fear, we could all benefit from a surplus of love.

I know very little-- but this I believe.

Comments

[Ali]

Of course there will be so many who try to diffuse their grief through the blaming and judging.

What a lovely post that what would truly help us heal is a surplus of love.

You and your family are a constant testament to that fact.

[Betti]

"All I can do is grieve, as I slowly replace guilt with acceptance, blame with forgiveness, fear with love. And in a culture fueled by fear, we could all benefit from a surplus of love. "

This fantastic pair of sentences can and will do wonders for many people, thank you for sharing so much of yourself.

[Robbin]

So many people - and so many cut down in their prime. Who knows what contributions they would have made, whose lives they would have touched. Murders don't just rob their victims, or their victims's friends and family. They rob us all.

[paige]

Recently, I was talking casually with a mom of one of my students. Her child hugged and hugged and hugged me. After a few minutes of this, the mom tried to shoo her child away from me. I stopped her and said what I always say in these sorts of situations: there aren't so many hugs in the world that we should be discouraging them.

I agree, a surplus of love will never be too much.

[Christy]

I just watched part of the video Cho made and I have no love for him right now and yes I wish to god he had gotten help sooner and that authorities could have intervened with all the warnings, but even with the violent writing, stalking, mental illness etc, no one, except Cho, could have predicted this.

I guess I just needed to make it clear that blaming the murderer is a righteous part of the process (with forgiveness possible but not anytime soon)--its all the misdirected anger and finger pointing at people for what they could not know that gets to me. Ugh.

Yes, more hugs, more love...please.