Over my lifetime I have lost some friends. Some were lost because of my actions, others were lost because of their actions. Some friendships were lost because of mutual feelings or physical distance. In light of what happened yesterday at Virginia Tech I have been bothered about one friendship lost in particular.
I developed a close friendship with one of my work colleagues many years ago. We were about the same age, had some similar interests and understood the stresses our careers placed on our lives. We had heart to heart conversations about everything. We didn't always agree with each other but we respected each other's opinions. As I watched the news yesterday I thought about all of the parents of these students and all of the wives and husbands of VT employees who had no idea if their loved one was safe. The pit in my stomache and the tears in my eyes reminded me of my old friend.
She loved guns. Her personal security level rose with each gun purchased and placed in her home. I was the exact opposite. I grew up with guns. The sight of them, along with the feel of the metal they were constructed of, physically repulsed me. Despite our differences, we were okay with each other.
We were okay with each other until she told me what her young son was doing over the weekend. He was shooting turtles. They would vacation in Texas at a family ranch that had a pond. For fun they would take their 6 year old son to the pond and let him shoot the turtles that lived there. He wouldn't shoot just one...or two....but as many as they could find. They weren't shooting animals for food or defense. They were shooting turtles because they were easy targets for a young boy who was learning his way around a gun.
I couldn't understand it. I still can't understand it. But I thought of that little boy yesterday as I watched the carnage in Blacksburg, Virginia. The question that kept coming to mind was whether the shooter at VT had shot turtles when he was little.
