Me too. We live in a neighborhood where everybody watches everybody's kids. They play here, next door, down the street and we parents just keep a general eye around for the gang of children.

We used to, anyway. Now the kids next door check in with their mom a couple times a day, our kids don't go more than a house either way and we've all gone over the no talking to strangers rule again.

I'm afraid too. All the time. Before Beslan. That only makes it worse. Actually, every day and every news item and the fact that it's another day with even _more_ love for my child make it worse. I wonder how I'll have the courage to let my son go anywhere in this world.

meant to say also that this was a beeautiful, eloquent post.

You said it perfectly. There is nothing more important than our moral imperative to take care of children -- any children, not just our own. The people who perpetrated that disaster were psychopaths, vile criminals, and nothing more.

My thoughts exactly. Thank you for this incredibly moving post.

You have put my feelings into words, and you have done it well. What an excellent piece of writing! I'm torn between crying due to the topic, and wanting to show this post to my English class as an example of what I expect from them!

These things should haunt all of us. What we see in events such as these are the ultimate depths to which desperate people can sink. Sadly I think there's always going to be some desperation in the world making it very hard to stop things like these from happening again. There are no easy answers.

Wow. Thanks for saying that.

I've gotten to where I can hardly watch the news anymore. If I do, I'm afraid that I will become a paranoid hermit and never leave my home and never let my child out of my sight. And I can't live like that. So I have to turn a blind eye or it will eat me up inside.

I have to believe that there are not millions of terrorists out there waiting to kill us all. I have to believe that it only happens occasionally and the chances of it happening to me & mine are slim to none. I have to go on living.

So I try not to dwell on these things. I try not to watch the news. I avoid talking about it. I avoid feeling it. If I ignore it, maybe it won't be true.

That being said, if I were to recognize my feelings on this, it would be exactly what you said.

Thanks for saying it.

God, I have been too. Especially about this gorgeous little 6-year-old girl who ran back in the building to find her mother, then the building blew up.

The little girl has been found alive.

I wept like a baby reading that.

And the mother who had to choose between her children? I was a wreck, I can't imagine how she felt. It all hurts so much, and I don't even have children.