N is for....

Nothing else is on my mind today.
Like most Americans, my thoughts and prayers are with the people of Boston. I feel a great sense of pride in our country and in humanity to see people running into the jaws of danger, hoping to help. 9/11, the shootings in Colorado and Newtown, these events have changed us. They have changed me. I no longer feel shock at these evil acts, just sadness and the conviction that the good really is greater.

My daughter and her friends wore purple today, in honor of the victims in Boston. They wore green in the days following the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School. I was initially disturbed. I worried that she was being flippant about a serious crime and I worried that she knew too much for her twelve years. Last night, while she was texting friends and discussing the tragedy, I realized that wearing special colors is her way of paying respect, of marking the event and saying that it matters. It is also part of the greater good. In her desire, her need to pay tribute, is her need to say that the good is greater and that she is part of that good.

So today I will wear purple. Like my daughter, I will pay tribute to the victims, the first responders, the bystanders who helped, the doctors and nurses, to the runners and the spirit of the Boston Marathon -  and to the good in all of us. It doesn't mean that I don't see the evil. We all see it, but we can also pull together and overwhelm the evil, each in our own way.