Am I the only one who is having trouble with something that keeps cropping up as I listen to coverage and discussion of the recent elementary school shootings in Newtown, CT? I hear reference most often to 26 victims that day or that something is being done 26 times, once for each victim of the Newtown shootings, and I always think that surely most people can understand there were at least 27 victims. It's like those making public statements and leading public actions are so afraid of potentially offending others they aren't willing to openly acknowledge the gunman's mother as one of the victims, and I find that sad. No matter how much we love to find someone to blame when things go wrong, and no matter how much we love to blame parents for any inappropriate behavior exhibited by the children they raise, the woman was shot while in bed and had, by all reports, been trying hard in the ways she knew how to help her troubled son, so why are so many unwilling to count her among the victims that day?
And to completely out myself for the bleeding heart type that I am, I actually count 28 victims killed in Newtown on December 14th. To me, the young man who killed so many before turning the gun on himself was the 28th. Whether you consider that he was a victim of mental illness that took a chance at a normal life away from him, a victim of others' lack of empathy and/or understanding that could have helped him before he got to such a dark and hopeless place inside, or just a victim of the gunshot that took his life away, he was also a victim according to this Merriam-Webster.com definition: a (1) : one that is injured, destroyed, or sacrificed under any of various conditions <a victim of cancer> <a victim of the auto crash> <a murder victim>.
Truly, when you consider how a small deviation in our delicate brain chemistry can create such inability to perceive the things around is in a realistic way or to connect with others and even our own emotions, each of us should be able to look at an Adam Lanza and say, "There, but for the grace of God, go I," feeling compassion for the awful pain he most have been in while absolutely deploring the action he chose to take in his attempts to alleviate that pain. If we let ourselves be hardened to our fellow humans' pain of any sort, we are letting the best part of our humanity become another victim of the Sandy Hook shootings.
