July 17th, 2014. A Day to Ponder.

July 17th, 2014. It was a day of incomprehensible sorrow. Malaysian airlines flight 17 was shot down. The Israeli invasion of Gaza will kill many. Men. Women. Children. All dying. Indiscriminate killing—the kind of psychotic behavior that gives you a knot in your stomach. The behavior that causes you to embrace your family with honesty. It makes every word immeasurably more meaningful. “I love you.” Our voice will be deeper, interwoven with a touch of worry. worry.

We think to ourself, “What makes people do such horrifying things?” “Why must people perpetuate suffering?” “What makes me better?” “Why?”

We will never know how the future would have greeted the people aboard MH17. How many people they would have touched, hurt, and loved. We will never know what kind of life the dead children of Gaza would have lived. Where they would have traveled. How often they would have cried. We might never know why people do what they do, but we still feel. We feel the loss as though we knew the victims of these crimes. In a way, we do know them. We are human. We are alive. We feel. We hurt. We see ourselves in them.

Odds are that tomorrow will be better. The sun will rise, and wipe away the pain. Most people will move on with their lives. Most people.