Dear Kid,

There are some things in life I understand.

I understand that when you spill coffee on your favorite shirt it is likely to cause a permanent stain. I understand that weekends are often too short and that the Bengals are unlikely to make it to the Super Bowl. I understand that elves are not going to show up to clean our kitchen.

Doesn’t mean I have to like those things, but I understand them.

Stop the Crazy! DearKidLoveMom.comAnd then there are things in the world that I simply do not understand.

I don’t understand people who abuse children. I don’t understand people who chop off journalists heads. I don’t understand people who take hostages in the Lindt Chocolat Cafe. I don’t understand people who kill other people because of the color of their skin. I don’t understand people who do crazy violent things in the name of religion (any religion).

On some level I know I’m not supposed to understand these people because they are psychopaths or psycho-bigots or psycho-somethings. Intellectually, I know they’ve been taught to hate and they’ve been taught that Violence Solves All.

Intellectually knowing doesn’t make it easier to understand. And there have been far, far too many scary-violent-unbalanced-disturbed-crazy things happening in our world.

Do I have a solution? Well, no. Perhaps just that we should all try a little harder.

And keep the crazy fighting where it belongs—in congress.

Love, Mom