An Act of Violance - How Safe Are Our Kids?

I'm sure we've all now heard about the fatal shooting in Virginia Tech, USA, that left 33 dead, including the killer himself.


I had chills when I saw the news and later read the online reports. How could someone wake up in the morning and decide to go on a shooting spree? How can someone get so depressed and so angry at the world that he would buy guns and shoot at innocent strangers?

Looks can be deceiving....The VTech killer. Looks like someone you might know?

It all feels so...out of place. So helpless, so unnecessary. To think of all the lives that were lost and all the lives of those left behind...shattered, in grief.

I remember the Columbine shootings. I remember thinking, how can these two teenage boys become such angry individuals that they wanted to shoot at their fellow classmates? Where were the parents? How come they couldn't see what was going on with their kids?


I then thought of the parents of the killed kids. How they must have felt, to lose their child like that. Penat2 jaga anak, tiba2 ada orang gila tembak mati. I can't imagine how I would feel if that ever happened to my kids. I don't want to imagine.


You think things like this would only happen in countries where guns are easily accessible. Sad to say, Malaysia is also becoming an unsafe country for kids. Not that we have guns to worry about (yet!!), but reports of kids getting kidnapped, raped, killed are plenty nowadays. Most recently we had the disappearance of that boy Yin, who was missing for 15 days before a Myanmar couple turned him in. Head bald, hungry, the boy looked like he had been through hell for the 2 weeks he had been gone.

My greatest fear is losing my kids. When we go shopping, I never let the kids out of my sight. I scream and yell at them to stay close by, tak kisah le orang lain nak pandang macam orang giller ke tidak. Dania is pretty good at taking instructions but Dina just loves running off by herself. She'll only stay in her pram when she wants milk or is too tired to run around anymore.

Thing is, we as parents can only do so much for our kids. We take every precaution when they're growing up, give them the best food, the best education money can buy, the best clothes, the best of everything. We teach them to be kind, honest, caring; overall a good person. We want our kids to be better than us, to have a better life.

As much as we want to keep our kids constantly close with us, there are times where we must let go. We send our kids to school and for hours, they are out of our sight. We learn to trust other people with our kids. We hope we can depend on that trust.

This is getting to be an emotional post but I'm in an emotional state. Sigh, excuse me while I go hug my kids.