Sense of the Senseless

Death and destruction and discord fill news articles and social media post after post. It's heartbreak streaming in on every side. I've been mulling over words in my mind, trying to make sense out of the people screaming back and forth on the internet. How quickly we forget the people on the other side of the screen are also people trying to make sense out of pain and confusion and information given in fragmented bits. Just like us.

While chaos continues raging an ocean away, life continues on around us. I plan meals for new parents, and my heart breaks for the parents who are trying to shelter their children. Is food at the top of their list of worries, or has it fallen lower now? What is that mothers going without so she can put food in her child's mouth?

I go on walks with my family and get to look at our clear sky. I load dishes and fold clothes and try not to hold too tight to a weight I am not capable of alleviating, because if I carried around the weight of pain in this world, it would be too much. I think of the mothers across the world still caring for their babies in the worst of circumstances. I do what mothers do and carry on. I change diapers and pray for the things I cannot change.

One day my baby will be old enough to ask about the dichotomy that exists in feeling gratitude your safety and aching for the ones that don't know what safety feels like. I pray that when that day comes I have the words to help her understand the hurt in the world that I still don't understand as an adult.

I will tell her that sometimes we cannot make sense out of the senseless. We learn to carry on and do our best to cultivate and live in peace.

I will tell her that peace begins at home, and sometimes the best way you can help the world heal is by nurturing the parts of it that have been entrusted to you.