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For me, 2007 has been a year of growth; of creating new life, embarking on new journeys and tackling new challenges.   But for so many, it has been a year of tragedy.   Over the last few months, several friends and family members have been dealt serious blows to their health or even lost their lives, seemingly in the prime of their lives.    These were not "elderly relatives", but closer to contemporaries- me in 10 years perhaps. 

With each phone call, my sense of mortality grew and the fleeting nature of life grew all the more acute.   I think the last few months fundamentally changed me and the perception I had of what was or was not "perfect" or ideal in my life.    The list of things I want is long and varied, but when I truly thought of what these people facing the loss of their loved ones were going through, the list evaporated.   All I ever wanted; my son and my husband especially, my family and friends...I have.   Without them, I honestly didn't want the "rest", like a sudden loss of appetite, it didn't matter anymore.  It's dangerously cliche, I know, and it's unfortunate that it can take looking into the eyes of someone living a nightmare to see that for many of us, our lives are more perfect than we knew.   Not just to say it, but to know it.   To feel it.  To let that truth change you.

And then of course, there is today's tragic events at Virginia Tech.   I live in Virginia, and as such, Virginia Tech is a familiar name.  I find myself quite surrounded by alumni at my office.   It's one of those schools that people love to come from.   Their ties and their memories are strong, they go back often for games and events, they give themselves instant message names that end in "Hokies".  It's the idyllic kind of college that Norman Rockwell might have painted.   Quaint, green, full of charm.   Today, full of horror.

I'm one of those people who loved college, and despite the poverty and uncertainty of the age, regard it with a fondness of some of life's best times; a mirage of the past we only wish we could reclaim.   My school was in Ohio and the CSNY song "Four Dead in Ohio" about the Kent State massacre in 1970 had a special poignancy for us; though we were a generation removed and didn't attend Kent State, somehow it seemed close enough and too awful to contemplate.   The terror of not knowing where my boyfriend or friends were, or worse, to face the loss of them.  The senseless terror is unbearable.   To think over 30 lives lost like this today...

And for me, now a newer perspective; that of a parent.   To send your child off to a esteemed school, seemingly safe in the rolling hills amid the clouds, and to hear that a massacre has occurred, to perhaps have your child among the dead.   It cannot be.

In a media crazed world, one that can report on Anna Nicole Smith's overdose around the clock for weeks, I hope that people are not tempted to reflect on this situation with a voyeurs eye.   With an insatiable need for suspense and drama, we risk failing to distinguish between reality and TV productions.   I hope that instead we can use this to find a glimmer of compassion.   To pray for those suffering tonight, whose world's were shattered in an instant.   To recognize our own fortunes and remember not to take a second of them for granted, for none of us knows how our own story will end, or how soon.  

Time to go hug my baby.