When evil of the magnitude of the shoot-down of Malaysia Flight 17 occurs, the loss of human life becomes almost too much to contemplate.
There is something that writers call a "hook"--an anecdote or situation that draws you into a story and personalizes it for you. For me, that visceral connection came when I heard an NBC news reporter state that one woman had lost all four of her grandchildren. "I'm not a grandmother anymore," she is quoted as saying. I can think of no more devastatingly sorrowful fate. Grandchildren are our life's legacy, our crowning achievements. They are living proof and a true reward that all our hard work and sacrifice along life's rough roadway has been worthwhile--and they are a constant joy and inspiration in our later years. As the grandmother of three beautiful and precious grandchildren, I know I would gladly lay down my life to protect any of them from fatal harm. To lose any one of these life's treasures-- let alone all of them at once--in such a horrific atrocity, is beyond my comprehension and, I'm certain, more than I could bear.
I think of that unbearably bereaved woman, and I pray for her. Because I know, if I had to walk in her shoes, I would long for the sweet release of my own death to free me from my eternal grief.
