My first non-snarky post ;-)

I was surrounded by family when I first heard about the Virginia Tech massacre. To be honest it was easy for me to push aside the shock and horror at the time, I was surrounded by babies and children full of unconditional love. It's remarkably easy to push aside the evils of the world when there's a chubby baby laughing on your lap. But later on, in our hotel room, hearing all the gory details it wasn't as easy. Our black & white 9yo wanted to know *why* someone would do this. Hmmm I wish I knew. We explained how sometimes people are just broken inside. They didn't get enough love or laughter or Faith or all of the above and they do things without regard to the consequence. And that most of the time they end their own lives just like this young man did. I'm an extremely compassionate person so I can't help but wonder what his life was like to do something like this. What anyone's life is like. Did he just have something in him that hopefully none of us have, and it snapped? Was he born "broken" or did an event or series of events cause him to break? We may never know. Whatever the reason I resent having to watch bits of my sons innocence swept away because of the evils of the world but I'm not naive, I know it's inevitable.
Yesterday he cried out of nowhere because he wanted his family to stay as it is, forever. He didn't want any of us (or his extended family) to die. He is a faith-filled child, he's an inspiration to both my husband and I some days. And yet, this horrific tragedy made death a little more real to him, and a little more scary. I can't imagine how the survivors and the victims families feel. And the shooters family. Wow.
I am hoping this doesn't turn into another anti-gun campaign. Yes, guns can kill a lot of people. So can poison. So can cars. So can big airplanes full of innocent people. But we don't outlaw airplanes. I don't think stricter gun laws would have fixed this young man. Nor do I think that VT could have reacted differently to prevent these senseless deaths. Hindsight is 20/20.
No real point to this other than my rambling. We're almost back to our state after 2500+ miles of driving round trip. (we're home now) The kids did great. We created some awesome memories, met family we haven't had the pleasure of meeting yet, and we're coming home a little richer (emotionally, we're poorer financially LOL). I know I have grown a little bit. I'm a little surer of things, as unsure as the world is. We are incredibly blessed with the family and friends we have. Incredibly.
So I'm trying to work out the vacation/back home transition right now. Part of me wants to move again. I want to be closer to family, not next door but within an hours drive. Life is too short. But the other part of me knows that our life here is the one we're supposed to be living right now. In this season anyway. It's a hard transition to make and growing up an only child I can't tell you how much the chaos and love and dysFUNction means to me. I have 3 sisters, 3 BIL's. Countless neices and nephews. And I've been in the family 10 years now, I've been an aunt to almost all of them since they were born. It's a neat feeling. I'm really glad we had 5 children now that I see the fruits of a big family as they're grown.
Sorry this isn't snarky. I'm just not feeling snarky. Actually I'm feeling a bit feverish. And the babe is feverish as well so I've felt like a mama kangeroo most of the day with a joey attached. ;-) But he's sleeping now finally and I need to take advantage and be productive. WHY didn't I clean more before we left? LOL