April 16

Six years ago today, April 16, 2007, a beautiful, blue-eyed baby girl was placed in my arms. We named her Margaret Julia- after two of our beloved grandmothers. As cliche' as it sounds, my heart grew so big with love in those minutes after she was born, I thought it could burst right out of my chest. That was at 6:23 am. 

Just a few hours later, after a hot shower and in between "new baby" visitors, I sat in bed, snuggling Maggie and inhaling her "new baby" scent. I glanced up at the TV in the corner, and noticed they had interrupted whatever show happened to be on with breaking news of a shooting at the Virginia Tech campus. I watched horrified, as the details unfolded... over 40 people were shot, more than 30 were killed. What a horrific news story to witness- just hours after bringing my first baby into this world. As I held her, I began to cry... I'm sure hormones played a big part at this point, but I was heartbroken that I was responsible for this new little being and the news was proving what a crazy, dangerous world we lived in... where people just showing up to work or school were getting killed. In the years to come- there have been more and more and more stories like this... TOO many stories like this. 

Just this past week, I was talking to my aunt about recording the local news broadcast, as Maggie was scheduled to be shown in their "Look Who's Six" feature. The email from the news station said that it would be aired "between 7 and 7:30, although the time is tentative due to the nature of live news." She kind of laughed it off and said that she doubted there would be any natural disasters this week to take over the newscast. 

Then, someone planted bombs in Boston. 

And, once again, the "mom" side of me got angry, defensive, scared.... What kind of sick world do we live in  where people think stuff like this is OK? Cool? Productive? How do I explain this to my kids? DO I explain this to my kids? What if they hear about it at school? How do I protect them from the crazies? You know... all those questions that keep you up at night....  

On the way to school, they were of course, discussing yesterday's bombing on the radio. I reached over to turn off the radio and put on a CD, when the DJ said, "I'm sad but not scared. We have to remember there are far more GOOD people in this world than bad." Simple- but it hit me. It was something I needed to hear this morning. As Facebook is flooded with pictures of Mr. Rogers and his "Look for the helpers..." quote, I'm reminded: LOOK FOR THE GOOD. It's something I try to do on a daily basis, but can easily lose sight of in the midst of tragedy and chaos- but probably the time I need to look for it the most- if not for me, for my children. Because, for every horrible story like this in the news, I have ten other stories of kindness and charity.... like the man who paid for our dinner one night at Chili's, because we reminded him of his family many years ago. Or the woman at Lowe's who replaced the broken part of Hattie's window shade last night at 8:30 instead of making us buy a new one. Or the cart collector at Pick N Save who loaded my groceries in the back of my van so I could get the kids in their carseats and out of the rain. Or the man at the video store who slipped my daughter a free package of microwave popcorn to watch with her newly purchased "Hotel Transylvania" DVD. Or the people who look the other way at during mass when my baby is screaming her head off for more Cheerios, but then come up to me after church to tell me how valuable it is that we bring our children each week. Or the nurse at the pediatrician's office who hands me a tissue to dry my eyes because I'm crying harder than my baby who just got 4 shots in her thighs. Or the little people I work with who give the BEST hugs and high fives and are so genuinely happy to see me each day. Or the teachers who watch over MY babies while I'm at work, comfort them during fire drills or soothe them when they scrape their knees on the playground. 

Look around. There is good everywhere. We can focus on the scary, unknown, crazy part of our world...or we can turn off our TVs and computers, at least for a little while, and focus on the GOOD. Or, more importatnly, we can try to be a part of the GOOD. 

I wasn't going to let any of that stand in my way of celebrating Miss Maggie J's SIXTH birthday today. Besides the local news, she was also pictured in our newspaper for her birthday. So... I carefully folded the newspaper in half to hide the headlines and accompanying photo from yesterday's tragedy so I could show off the beautiful, blue-eyed six year old featured on the front page of our newspaper!

“Do your little bit of good where you are; it's those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world.” 

-Desmond Tutu