They're children

It’s eerie and disconcerting. It was almost three years ago to the day, the last time I sat on the sofa in front of the television with tears running down my cheeks, watching with horror and disbelief and anguish.

This time there were no airplanes. This time it was a school in Russia. This time it was children.

I sat with an uneaten sandwich in my lap. My lunch appetite was long gone. A huge, dry, burning lump was stuck somewhere between my throat and my guts. And as I watched, my tears fell.

I watched film clips of parents tearing at their hair and collapsing into each other’s arms, their faces contorted by sheer agony. Others were staring with silent shock into the distance. Police and Special Forces were stationed between the desperate parents and the school, which housed their children and the terrorists.

Then, there was footage of those that escaped or were rescued. Frail, naked children grasping for water bottles. Their eyes were dark and sunken and sad. I could only imagine what they had witnessed.

And then … then there was the footage of men running with frail, naked children in their arms. Children covered in blood, their skin too white and ashen, their arms and legs dangling and flopping. Dead children.

The most recent images I’ve seen, for it has gotten so I cannot look anymore, were of more parents, walking down rows of black plastic bags - hundreds of bags – looking for their children among the corpses.

It was only three weeks ago that our family walked to the first day of school with new backpacks, lunch boxes, and tennis shoes. We met the day with a giddy mix of excitement and fears. When we returned to the schoolhouse that afternoon there were no police barricades or machine guns, just school buses and happy children.

And it was because I had so recently experienced that true "first" first day of school, that my tears fell for the parents in Russia and how their school year began.

I suppose as a columnist, albeit a somewhat haphazard one, I should have a well-reasoned series of arguments and positions to fill the remaining column inches. Whatever my subject, I try to research all sides of an issue before convincing the gentle reader that I am, in fact, correct.

But this one escapes me … I can’t seem to get past the anguish and anger.

I cannot wrap my mind around any reason to use children as weapons, hostages, or collateral. I cannot fathom the sheer emotional hell those parents experienced. I cannot comprehend the challenges those police and rescuers faced.

So I find myself mostly with questions … and since answers seem so difficult to reach, I end up with frustration and anger.

Why, why, why, why, why?

How does any parent ever recover from identifying their child among the dead?

What possible outcome could be achieved by this terrorist action?

And as I swirl about searching for an argument or a clue or some insight into those that would do such a thing, I’m only met with more questions.

Can there be a god that would condone this? Or a political affiliation? Or a movement? Or one single damn person?

As I review my list of arguments surrounding this tragedy, I realize that further discussion about politics, war, jihads, blame, comparisons, or explanations is hollow and immaterial.

And, you know what? I don’t want to understand or empathize. I think I’ll leave that for the more intelligent, political, or whomever you have to be to address or explain such horror.

I want those that can even conceive of involving children in this sort of violence gone.

That’s it - just gone.

(click here to read archived columns by Cletus Bianchi)