I just read a recent news article about two 12 year old girls who were obsessed with an online character, who in turn was obsessed with murder and death. The two girls then attempted to impress the online character by stabbing their friend 19 times.
I read suspense and mystery. I am currently writing a mystery novel involving death and murder. I started reading and writing these types of stories, because their content terrified me. Yes, they are intriguing, but I am truly frightened by them as well. Though I know things like this happen all too regularly, in my mind, this is all fiction. But it's not. For so many, this becomes reality. For so many, they are unable to distinguish between truth and lies, between right and wrong.
The paradoxes in this news story were terrible. The three girls were friends and classmates, yet the attackers had been thoroughly planning this crime since February. They ruthlessly schemed and plotted and finally decided to lure the victim from a sleepover into the woods and stabbed her repeatedly while playing hide and seek. The innocent context juxtaposed with the heinousness of the crime are mind boggling and make it all the more disturbing and inconceivable.
How does this happen? How does one person succumb to this kind of impulse, let alone two pre-teen girls? As a parent of two small children, this kind of thing terrifies me, and perhaps not for the reasons you think. It terrifies me, because I think I am a good mother, and I think my husband is an excellent father, and this terrifies me, because despite thinking that, my children are ultimately in control of what they do when they get older. We can lay a moral foundation built on love, trust, kindness and integrity, but they are going to be the ones who choose whether or not to implement that foundation into their lives. Do I think something like this could ever happen to my kids, of course not, never in a million years... just as, I am sure, the parents of those two 12 year old girls could've never imagined it.
Thankfully and miraculously, the stabbed little girl lived and is in stable condition, but according to reports, one of the punctures was mere millimeters away from piercing her heart. Millimeters. Such a tiny amount of space, such a tiny difference between life and death, and I suppose that is what this story exemplifies, the seemingly miniscule moments we as humans miss on a daily basis. What had those parents missed? What had the victim missed? What had their other friends, family members, and teachers missed? What had those two girls who attempted murder missed? What tiny misstep began this catastrophic sequence of events? I honestly do not know, and even if I did, I do not think it would have made much of a difference, because this real life horror story is something my mind relates only to fiction, to make believe. It is chosen naiveté, and it is a choice I choose to live with for now.
I'm going to hug and kiss my kids a little extra tonight. I'm going to pray with them and tell them wonderful stories of our faith and play with them and laugh and do my best to strengthen their foundations. I'm going to try to pay closer attention to the tiny things, the little things, but in the end, after all of this... I am going to hope for the best.
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