Dear Daughter

I wasn’t going to comment on the Las Vegas tragedy, but a report yesterday about a father sitting at his daughter’s hospital bedside in Las Vegas while she recovers from a gunshot wound just hit me hard. Selfishly my first thought was that life was great because that was not my daughter! She is not going to be physically and emotionally scarred from this heinous act for life.

My mind did then strayed to more positive and selfless thoughts. For a few moments in Las Vegas a deranged gunman occupied that space, but there were countless stories of acts of heroism and human kindness in that same space and time. Spouses instinctively shielding the other from the gunfire, parents shielded children, a sister shielded her younger brother because she believed  he had greater aspirations in life then her.  This was a horrible event, but I like the odds, in a crowd of thousands, there was one evil person versus tons of people full of love protecting others over their own lives.

A reason for why life is great, I don’t know which is better, to know that other people love you enough to lay down their lives to protect you or that you love someone so much that you instinctively and without hesitation would shield them from danger? Maybe a little of both? I think that I’d would jump on top of my kids to protect them, but it would be nice if my wife then jumped on top of me to protect me. However, she’s a tiny person, not sure it would do much good since that would not provide much cover and the awkward looking family sandwich would probably just have attracted more attention from the deranged gunman?

But I digress, Life is Great because majority of people in the world are good people when they are tested and often that’s when it really counts. Meantime, love the ones you’re with – specially your Dad!

Dad