After seeing the video that is circulating friends pages on Facebook about Sandy Hook, I am greatly angered. I have spent time asking myself why it angers me so. First, I have to remind myself that this is someones ill attempt at trying to explain something they simply can’t understand. The situation at Sandy Hook is so hard to comprehend. What makes someone do this? For many the gun talks that have come from this tragedy only can result in only one thing….conspiracy. We have dealt with this before. After 9/11 there were many who couldn’t believe something like that could happen and they did their best to come up with a “rational” way to understand. For some, humans will do whatever they can to find a way to explain, rationalize, and understand what has happened without concern for those they may hurt.
This brings me to the reason it hits home so much for me. After Clara passed, I spent many hours and days trying to find answers. SIDS or Sudden Infant Death Syndrome was not something I truly understood at the time. In my searching I found many websites, Facebook sites, and blogs that were nothing but peoples attempts to understand or explain SIDS. Many sites said SIDS was nothing more than a parents way of getting off with killing their babies. Another one I read was about how the government was experimenting on our children through vaccinations (which is why they track lot numbers) and see how many die. These types of sites are not helpful to any grieving parent nor do they provide the public with good information so they can support others when a child is lost. They simply create judgements of parents and families.
When we look into Sandy Hook – Just because those families “didn’t get to view” their child doesn’t mean their child didn’t die. Just because the autopsy of each individual hasn’t been released doesn’t mean they didn’t die…the physical body autopsy may be complete but often any blood tests or such can take weeks to come back. It took 45 days to get the full report for Clara. Just because there is no surveillance video released doesn’t mean they are doctoring it, maybe it means they are giving these families privacy from having to watch the horror their children saw. Maybe they are trying to honor our wishes to stop sensationalizing these terrible tragedies in the media.
As for the craziness to the reporting and how things were always changing… Stop and think about how quickly the rumor mill in your town hits and how varied stories can be when there is a terrible accident or a suspicious death. I can tell you that some of the things I heard about how Clara died were so off the wall and yet mixed with some very correct info. It happens.
So before you share that video you should ask yourself…am I helping those families that lost their children or am I spreading rumors.
