Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Many will not want to read what I am blogging today and that is OK.

I had a very hard time going to sleep last night. Why should that be? The two men responsible for the fatal bombing at the Boston Marathon are no longer threats. His brother is dead and Dzhokhar is now in custody getting medical treatment so he can be charged in this crime and then interrogated. All is well within the system and the town of Waterford.

Of course there are three funerals yet to be had and the grieving is in process of those who were injured; lost limbs, sight and will suffer with PTSD.

But I could not get this young man out of my mind and I realized out of my heart. All of a sudden I was in the boat with him. As I gazed upon this 19 year old man I began to sense a frightened little boy.

I wonder what he was thinking as he hunkered down under the covering of that boat. I wonder if he was scared, if he was remorseful, if he just wanted to be back to his normal life. This young man, who had his whole life before him and who was well thought of, participated in a most horrendous event. Did he even realize the impact of what he did? Did he even care? I sensed that he did.

And what about his brother? Did he know he was dead? Did he remember running over his brother as he fled in the stolen car trying to get away despite his injuries? Did he wish he had been killed at that exact time during the 200 rounds of ammunition that were fired by the well trained policemen? Did he wish he would die in the boat or was he praying to Allah that he be found much sooner than he was.

Did he cry? Did he want to be back in the arms of his mother being rocked to sleep after a terrible nightmare? Did he realize that his life was now over?

What happened? How did these two young men turn from being happy with their lives to feeling the need to hurt others? It is the same question we ask every time there is a tragedy of this magnitude. We asked it when all the precious children were gunned down; we asked it when all the people in the theater were massacred; we asked it after the Oklahoma bombing and we will continue to ask it into eternity. It is an unanswerable question.

This one is easier, for you see these young men were not white home grown Americans. We can now blame it on another religion and on allowing "these people" to come into our country.

I am not taking away from the horrendous event that happened this week by connecting with this other human being. You see, that is what I do! It is what I have been both burdened and blessed with. I connect with the people who do things that hurt other people and hurt themselves. Guess it is why I stayed a Child Abuse Social Worker for 33 years.

I was there in the boat with this young man. There was no evil here but another human being who made the decision for whatever reason to hurt other people. I grieve for this man too. I have to for you see he is my brother in the human race.

I hope he gets punished for his crime. I hope that he heals from his wounds and he decides to cooperate with the investigators so someone can stop the next assault, because you see my friends there will be more assaults. Not because we live in now a terrible world, for you see there have always been assaults; but because we all have the propensity to harm others.

I think there is one very frightened little boy laying in the hospital wondering how it all went wrong. Or at least my heart hopes so. That is the way I can make sense of it all!

Blessed be!