Newtown tragedy. Something no one can even grapple. So many lives lost. The unthinkable.

How would my mother react to the tragedy if she is alive today? She has never really valued life. Not her own and not those around her. My first realization was when I was in college. One day my landlady talked about her lost infant child with such sadness despite years gone by. My mother had a still born child before. She had mentioned him, but never with much emotion. It was just a matter a fact. When I lost mine in 2nd trimester, I had not realized how many years I grieved. Though the pain is not as deep today, we still hang his/her ultrasound every year on the Christmas tree. I have this numb spot in my heart for this child that I never had the chance to meet. I have remorse on perhaps not taking better care of me so that he/she can be here today. It's never a matter a fact.

The one thing my mother had always hoped for is for my dad to die. I know for a fact that she had prayed the same prayer for my oldest brother and I would not be surprise if she had wished me dead too. And whenever she is faced with a challenge or when things don't go her way, her only solution is to die.

She once talked about someone who lost their college aged child to a tragedy. Her take was, if they had known she was going to die, they wouldn't have spent that much money to send her to college. Another time, a family friend lost her husband, leaving her with a few young children. My mother's   take was that she deserved it, just because she married a decent and educated person. Like that was a crime. In recent years, when someone died, she would say, "he got to go at 50." When I told her that a friend in his 40s died suddenly, she simply said "poor thing" but with a tone that she had wish it was her. 

Her life is meaningless to her. Let alone the life of others. Does she even have the capacity to grieve for others. Would she grieve if I was shot and killed at 6 while I was in school? She might. But not for the same reason. To her, I am the extension of her dreams. I am the person sent out to fulfill them. If I had died at 6, she would have lost the hope of the realization of a perceived dreams. But if she had known that I would turn out as my own person fulfilling my dreams instead of hers, she would be glad that I was dead.

So, I don't think she would understand the depth of the grief that the people in Newtown are going through. I don't think she has the capacity to understand. Worst of all, part of her probably believes that these innocent people deserves the tragedy. Her reasoning is right to her but it is just so wrong.