Unfathomable Choice

Wholly depraved tragedies cause one to wish that they go unreported. Our community has recently learned that over the course of a decade one woman gave birth to seven children. She has apparently admitted to killing six of the babies and said that the seventh was still born. The current home owners made the discovery while cleaning out a garage. Every aspect of the story causes my heart and brain to seemingly stop and race at the same time. Each attempt to place this horror into perspective fails as I flutter between hyperactive evaluation and stoic contemplation.

I am unaware of any personal connection to this situation but my interest exceeds mere morbid curiosity. This event compels a penetrating and powerful review of humanity and just what it means to be human. It seems that the initial reaction causes us to seek an understanding as to why these things happen. We search for explanations to frame the inexplicable. We find comfort in labels of mental illness, psychotic breaks, postpartum depression and any number of other diagnoses. Diagnoses that few of us understand, even if we own a copy of the DSM-V.

I am old enough to have endured and witnessed the inhumanity of people and our willingness, under numerous situations, to brutally murder, destroy, and obliterate. Throughout history we have condemned and justified horrific atrocities, depending upon the end for which the perpetrators acted. Some are vilified as the most evil among us and others have been decorated with medals for bravery and heroics. This ambiguity has lead me to conclude that the most foolish thing for me to attempt is a mind numbing search for meaning where none is to be found. Even if some explanation can be given, the acts, and their natural consequences, lack intrinsic meaning. They constitute nonsense.

When confronted with the appearance of pure evil I remember that I have accepted a charge to be most humane in the face of the greatest inhumanity. I have promised to succor those who seem to least merit comfort. I should pray for even the very enemy who would seek my miserable demise. Are these just platitudes? Are these words to merely reflect some pious persona, a being to which I aspire yet refuse to embrace? Do I even have the right to declare any act as evil when I lack the ability to look upon the heart?

Lest I be misunderstood, there will be those whose very role requires them to assess and evaluate the unjustifiable reasons for such an act and to determine what response society should make to seek justice for these unjustifiable acts. Not only will they do it, but they should. There is a necessary Right that only comes from justice meted out by men. But I already know that whatever answer equity provides, it will ring a hollow echo in my heart.

I know that my internal disconnect will persist until i can honestly declare that, for her, I still feel love.