What do you say? Plenty of people have found (beautiful, heart-wrenching) words but I'm still at a loss. I try but come up empty. I attempt to join thoughtful Twitter discussions, but I flounder and misspeak and it's not just my 140-character limit, it's me. I just don't have the words for all this. For children dying. No words feel enough for the wrongness, for the sadness of that.
I had to stop by the store on my way home from work Friday. I was already raw and crying at the drop of a hat, but we still needed milk. I was checking out and my eyes wandered over to the next check-out lane where a flustered woman was telling the cashier that she had forgotten something important and could she pay for her cart and leave it to the side and then go back to get her missed item? The man behind her said, "Oh, don't worry about it! Go get your item. We'll wait." The people behind him all nodded. "We'll wait," someone from the back said.
I started tearing up at this and the teenage bagger looked at me without alarm or judgment but with understanding in his eyes. "I'm sorry," I said. "That was just so kind." He nodded. It was a much-needed, beautiful moment.
Over the weekend I was at the store again, and a man was holding his laughing baby girl. He was kissing her neck, and she was laughing, and I heard him say to her, "I love you I love you I love you." It was beautiful.
Kyle had pneumonia all last week and Mike was out of town for a few days of it. I was stretched thin and exhausted but mostly just worried about Kyle. Friday night, A'Dell dropped off dinner, snacks for Kyle, and a mini-bottle of vodka for me. I couldn't stop crying over her kindness, and because I have beautiful friends who would do that for me.
Children dying are words that shouldn't exist. They just shouldn't. I don't understand a world that has a need for those words and those words often. I cry just thinking about it, especially after last week. I cry just thinking about it.
There is still kindness, though, and that's bringing me a lot of comfort during this -- I look for it, I'm trying to act with it, and I want to acknowledge it whenever I see or feel it.
I don't have the right words. But my best attempt at them would be to say be kind today. And then again tomorrow.