Danielle Christopher

My tears are flowing without censoring. I just read about the horror in Oslo, Norway. The death toll kept  rising.  I can’t fathom nor comprehend the tragedies. I was compelled to read about it online and should not have. I hold my laptop and know I should close it. My girls are near. I can’t help but let the tears flow. The horror for the parents who dropped off their children to a camp in paradis, and then to get the call no one should.

The pictures that are splashed across the news are sickening. I don’t know how the media can do it. If it was their kids would they change their tactics. For a city to not have any violence since World War 2 was incomprehensible. After reading and hearing the survivor stories, I could not let my children go from my sight.

My four-year-old sneaks up on me and gives me a big bear hug.

“Mommy, why are you sad?” she asks.

With my heart in my throat I tell my oldest the thread of results of the world news. All the while, I don’t understand it. I explain that a bad person got angry towards innocent children. Now they can’t go home to their parents. My girls know what grief is all too well.

Her face crumbles in thought. “Then he should go on a long time out.”

No truer words have been said. But really, will there ever be justice to those families?

For all my worry about leaving my girls, like my mother did in cancer, I never imagined the possibility of having my girls leave me through trauma or tragic circumstances.  

I strive to live through each day letting my girls know the truth on how much I love them. I might be grumpy through no fault of their own and at the end of the day, live life as there is no tomorrow.