On Entitlement, and other thoughts

Last night I saw a flag drooping at half-mast. It was the first time in my life that I looked at that flag and it seemed to hang in shame. This week a 20-year-old in our nation was allowed to take three of the guns his mother owned (including at least one semi-automatic rifle), enter an elementary school, and kill 20 children ages 5-10 (mostly Kindergartners). I feel like our nation has been reeling with the knowledge that mass killings such as this have increased so quickly over the last several years and we are wondering where it is leading. I and many others are asking questions about gun control and school safety design. That's not what I want to write about here though.

As I've grieved for those mothers who are just like me but are suffering from such a horrible loss, I've wondered how I could possible deal with losing one of my daughters so violently. It would be a very difficult road and I can't pretend like I know how I would react or what the answers are. I do know that as I've thought about this I've felt in my heart that I need to be grateful for any time I get with my kids or my husband or any good thing in my life, and not expect that any more than that is owed to me. A wise neighbor of mine lost his wife very suddenly last year. She had a blood clot in her brain and was up talking, completely normal, and then in a flash she was gone. He said something to me that I've never forgotten, that we have to be grateful for what we have because we never know when we'll no longer have it, and we shouldn't expect more than that. When I remember that everything I have is a gift - that the opportunity for it is provided to me by Heavenly Father and I'm not entitled to anything really - I feel gratitude and I feel joy, and fear or anger go away.

Today marks three years since my dad passed away. I sometimes find myself thinking about chains of events, and whether or not he would have died if certain other things had been in place in his life, and whether or not my sister would have died last year if she hadn't lost our dad, but I don't have answers to those kinds of questions. I think all of us feel jipped by some events or circumstances in our lives, and if we can improve our circumstances we should, but always I need to remember that I'm not necessarily entitled to anything different, that each experience in life is an experience that can be for my good. I'm blessed to have had parents who offered me every thing that they did, and regardless of what they lacked I can be grateful for what they offered which was never owed to me in the first place. Any time I was given with my dad or my sister, or that I get with my own kids, etc., is a blessing and a gift that I was not owed. Feeling this makes my life feel so rich.