About a week ago, a 15-year-old girl was charged with murder after she stabbed her 16-year-old brother to death. It was all because of an argument about a video game system. A Playstation.
It happened not far from here, in a suburb of Cincinnati.
When the police officers arrived on the scene, they found the 16-year-old boy with a mortal stab wound. They put him in the back of an ambulance and skirted him off to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center. It was there that they pronounced him dead.
Just a couple of kids, really. Arguing over a game.
In the 911 calls, the mother (of both children) said her daughter stabbed her son after he stole her Playstation 4.
Something about this story struck me.
I had more questions than answers, that is for sure.
But the things I wondered most of all were about their personal lives. Were they rich or poor? Did the siblings like one another, and this was some fluke beyond reason? Or did they hate each other since the day the little sister was born? Was she sexually abused? What other truths did they hold about their lives?
And where is she today? Is she sad for what she did or glad for what she did?
I do this with so many of the stories I hear on the news. A car wreck, killing two people. Were they strangers? Were they husband and wife? Or mother and son? What could have possibly happened? Did the driver have a sneezing fit and veer off the road? A sleepy nod? Or did a bird hit their windshield, causing the driver to lose control?
The world is full of us. Eight billion in all. And each day, so many lives take a sharp turn and never go back to the same path as before. We see these blips all the time in the news media. There are so many, day in and day out, that sometimes we don’t even take notice.
I’m not sure if we should take notice or not. Because every empathetic thought is accompanied by a weight that falls on our hearts. And sometimes it can become very heavy.
Today I have questions. And today, I wonder.
And today, I take a deep breath and offer my kind thoughts, my positive energy, to all of those who are troubled. To all those news stories that are not our own. Yet, in some ways, they are our stories.
And then. I hope. May all sentient beings be free from needless suffering.
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“I’m rightly tired of the pain I hear and feel, boss. I’m tired of bein on the road, lonely as a robin in the rain. Not never havin no buddy to go on with or tell me where we’s comin from or goin to or why. I’m tired of people bein ugly to each other. It feels like pieces of glass in my head. I’m tired of all the times I’ve wanted to help and couldn’t. I’m tired of bein in the dark. Mostly it’s the pain. There’s too much. If I could end it, I would. But I can’t.”
― Stephen King, The Green Mile
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“There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.”
― James Baldwin, Giovanni’s Room
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“When you compare the sorrows of real life to the pleasures of the imaginary one, you will never want to live again, only to dream forever.”
― Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
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