Three Dead in Ohio

Another spree killing. Another random, senseless act of violence. Ohio this time. A high school. Kids in the cafeteria eating breakfast, doing homework, being teenagers. But one student had other things on his mind. Who knows what demons were crowding in on him. The shrinks will examine him and a profile will be made, papers will be written, much ink shed. But none of it will sponge away the blood that he shed, nor will it in any way recompense for the loss of three young lives. They died for the sake of nothing, and nothing can ever make up for that. John Donne worte that no one was an island, that no one lived alone. Because we are all human beings, the death of even one human being diminishes us all in many ways, even if we didn't personally know that individual. We are dimished more when the death makes no sense, when it comes so unexpectedly, so randomly. In some areas, we anticipate the spectre of death. Soldiers die. The same with police officers, firefighters, mountian climbers, scuba divers. We understand that. We have an easier time processing it. But when death stalks the safe places - the schools, the churches, the shopping malls, the restaurants, the offices - that's when we stand agog and wonder whether the whole world's gone mad. I don't think the whole world has. Just bits and pieces of it. Unfortunately, sometimes the mad ones bump into the the rest of us with terrifying results. Say a prayer for the departed. Say another for the ones they left behind. But save one for the troubled youth who felt a gun would say what his words could not.