Boy, this thread really worked on my emotions. So let's go through them.
1) The part I have a VERY HARD time understanding (and I hope this doesn't make me a hard butt) is the lack of awareness of one's kids. I have ONE. We (my separated now for 17 months wife and I) were genetically incapable of having another (spina bifida, multiple miscarriages), and he's my world. And going back to when I was younger my father - a very stern and hard man, no nonsense, a retired USAF E-9 with the drill instructor face - instilled in all of us an awareness of the risks of vehicles and children. To this day, I walk around a car before I get into it to make sure there's nobody playing (riding a Big Wheel if I may show my age) behind my car. I do multiple scan checks that are so second nature that folks look at my like I'm nuts.
So I must confess I have a VERY hard time trying to understand the "we were in a hurry and we forgot our kid." We had a swimming pool in the old house, and I never rested well knowing my son could fall in (he was eight when we moved in and a great swimmer).
And then on March 9, 2007, we had a new chair delivered to the house. We had a new puppy about ten weeks old or so that we were going to breed (eventually) with the other dachsund. In an unthinking hurry, my wife put the puppy outside in the back yard so the guys could bring the chair in. Once they did and placed it, they let themselves out, and we sat up there in the room talking about where it should go and how it looked best. And then I heard her scream hysterical and tear down the stairs. It never crossed her mind that the dog was so small that she got through the gate and.......into the swimming pool.
And drowned.
Never, ever, would I EVER say that a dog equals a human being - but you do have to remember that some of us have them BECAUSE we cannot have kids, so they're sort of like the closest replacement we can get. We decided we needed to get my son from school and tell him (that was the last day before Spring Break). So we picked him up and brought him home. Wanna know what made it worse? He walks through the door and starts calling her name. That one will kill you dead.
Anyway, he handled it a lot better than we did.
2) That as well as my career made me aware of something else: how human we all really are. I set up blood transfusions (medical technologist). Never have I ever knowingly given someone a wrong blood type. But statistics show that every single person who does that gives "wrong blood" AT LEAST TWICE PER YEAR. Usually it's because we were given the wrong sample (preanalytic error) rather than us missing something (analytic error). Do any of you really think that if I gave blood that killed a patient that that would make me feel any better?
Every pilot makes mistakes. My BIL is a C-130 pilot, and he says not only do pilots all make mistakes, they do it every single time they go up. It's just that 99.99% of the time nobody but the pilot knows or it doesn't really matter. Every person driving on the road, every restaurant cook, every lawyer, every doctor. (Just yesterday a doc made an honest mistake that nearly cost a woman her life in surgery - I was part of the team that bailed them out, and that makes you feel good). Even great football players make mistakes.
A friend of mine some 20 years ago was driving his Southern rock wannabe band back home. They stopped for gas. He drove, assuring his passengers he was rested enough to drive. Seven miles up the road they crashed, and he was the only survivor, killing all three of his friends. That was terrible. He was not so gregarious anymore. About 15 years later, his wife went in for female surgery at 34 and - for reasons still not fully revealed - never woke up. That was bad.
But you know the worst part? YOU KNOW deep down (whatever you think about God or not) that this guy more than once has wondered if his wife isn't dead as part of punishment from God (he was left as a single father of three). I am glad to say (I think) that he's married again and moved on as best as a person can.
So I can see it both ways.
That said - it doesn't look like this was an accident. If not, make him Sandusky's roommate. I'd say Dahmer but he's dead.
