I often make fun of “dropping off the face of the earth” whenever we go home to Michigan and visit family and friends, but apparently I am living in my own little insulated bubble here. We did not have the TV on yesterday (hooray! how I like it, usually) except for a little Noggin in the morning.

So imagine my surprise when I opened the LA Times this morning and saw the headlines about what had happened yesterday at Virginia Tech. It made me sick to my stomach. I’ve been thinking about it all day. Thinking about how scared those poor kids must have been, sitting barricaded in classrooms and dorms, wondering if it was over. Thinking about what in the world that boy must have been feeling to make him do such a horrendous thing. But most of all thinking about the poor families who were just waiting for the news. Hoping and waiting to hear that their son or daughter wasn’t one of the victims, that they were ok.

I simply cannot imagine being in that position. I just think it would be more than I could bear, more than any parent could bear. And the poor families who didn’t hear good news. Instead they were told that their child was one of the unlucky ones. It just makes me want to take my girls and run far, far away. But I’m not sure that there is a place anymore that would make me feel safe.

It is just so hard when something like this happens. It makes you realize, no matter how much you try to protect your children, there are so many things that are out of your control. Sometimes bad things just happen and there isn’t anything you can do about it.