A lot has happened this week and I have learned an invaluable lesson from it all.  Monday began as we watched with tears the scenes out of Haiti.  Limbs having to be removed with no anesthesia, just as was done during the Civil War.

There is a scene in "Ride With the Devil," in which the character Jake Rodele has to remove an arm of his best friend, Jack Bull.  It is a scene that has stayed with me since I first viewed it.  It required love and trust between friends that does not have a good ending.  That movie brings tears to my eyes, but Haiti news makes me want to sob.  That is devastation.

On Tuesday this week, I was angry about the MA election results.  It was a senseless political loss, but no one lost a life over it.  And the people in that commonwealth spoke loudly.  That is disappointment.

Also on Tuesday, in historic Appomattox, a quaint town where General Lee surrendered the Confederacy to General Grant's Union, a massacre of eight (8) people occurred, one of whom was a 4 year old boy.   All shot.  When I heard the first report, my mind went immediately back to Va. Tech in 2007.  Like that April day, a man plotted the murders, hunted victims down, and used firearms.  He even shot into a police helicopter gas tank above, forcing it to land.  

Stories from Haiti and Appomattox are devastating.  Politics are deeply disappointing at times.  But death and suffering go far beyond that in importance and emotion. 

I support the right to own guns.   I know dozens of hunters.  But when guns have been turned against so many humans in Virginia within small communities in less than three years, it is devastating, senseless and leaves me to wonder why is this happening here in small towns?