Let Peace Begin With Me

Today was a horrific day for those living in our nation's capital. For me, it wasn't personally horrific, but I was so saddened by the senseless violence that took the life of a soldier, here on home soil. Cpl. Nathan Cirillo stood guard and the National War Monument when a gunman shot and killed him as he honoured those who have fought and died so that we could live in this free and magnificent country.

This news is everywhere. I can't keep my kids from hearing about it. So when they ask if I have heard about it, and start telling me the versions they have heard, we have that hard conversation. First task is clearing up the rumors and the stories that naturally are blown out of proportion by teenage kids talking about it. Next comes the question "why would anyone do something like this? How would they like it if somebody did it to them?" These are hard questions to answer. We talk about evil. And how people just don't just wake up one day and decide to do these horrific things. It starts with one bad decision  and if corrected quickly, you can break that thread or repair that bad decision, but if left unchecked it becomes easier to make another bad decision and then another and another and another without correcting them, and those bad decisions just keep happening until one day they are wound so tight with the thread of bad decisions that they can't break free.  Nobody is born evil, it's a choice they make, but not all at once, but a series of choices that lead you down that path.

They asked me about the shooter. I told them that he didn't matter. Who he was or where he was from, don't mean a thing. The only person that matters today, is the soldier who died. I wanted them to see him, to know his name and what little there is to know about him tonight, so I found these pictures on facebook and showed it to them. The one on the right is from earlier that morning.

This is the young man that matters. He is the one I want my kids to remember when this day is talked about in social study classes in the future. Because Cpl Nathan Cirillo is who really matters in all of this chaos.

After an emotional conversation, I sent the kids to bed and headed down stairs to get some sewing done. Later, when I came back to the computer I found this note from Tansley

I smile. How perfect. Her class is learning this song for the school's Remembrance Day Ceremony. Thank you Tansley, for the reminder that peace begins with me.