If you were raised right in the 1950s, you came away with an assumption about life: If you behaved yourself, went to church, prayed, lived on the straight and narrow and worked hard, everything would be fine.
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That was a grand suit of armor to wear into the world.
It would keep you in the sunshine until old age came along and with it, death, and then an eternal reward beyond earthly imagining.
My first real newspaper story involved two people out in the woods who had killed their children and stuffed them into a footlocker and then buried the locker under their house trailer. I remember when the sheriff and his deputies dug them up, the awful feeling that came with all of that.
There was, of course, nothing those two children could have done to deserve that fate. Their parents sat up in their trailer for the better part of a year, knowing what they had done, right through the Christmas season.
Not long after that, a foolish man was using gasoline to clean some auto parts in a bucket in his basement in the winter. Somehow, the gas vapors were sucked into the heating ducts all through the house and when the furnace sparked on, it was like a bomb exploding.
I covered that too.
The corners of the house were split, which is pretty significant given the way wood houses are constructed. I don’t remember how many children died in that fire, at least four, I think.
When I got there, I saw a pair of melted pink sneakers in the back yard.
It took a long time to stop wondering about that.
Weekends in Atlanta were deeply troubling early in the 1980s.
I was working there for the Tribune and someone was killing children.
There were many on the list by the time the investigation was completed. That was kind of unusual, the FBI told me.
It’s all in the statistics, they said. Dead children frequently lead to murderous parents.
This is not the kind of thing you need to know, but there you have it.
So now we come to a quiet little part of Lancaster County, Pa., where the Amish live on farms that are as crisp and as clean as paintings.
It’s a delightful place to visit and the children play no small part in that, zipping around on scooters or peeking around the corner at the farmer’s stand or visiting the Lancaster Central Market, America’s oldest farmers market, with their parents on market day.
I didn’t get to go to this sad event in Nickle Mines, Pa., but I know about the Amish. I have written about them and visited them before. I don’t think I have to repeat all the details. A troubled man. Guns. Anger at God. Dead and wounded Amish girls all over a quiet little schoolhouse where nothing bad should ever happen to anyone.
What does this mean?
I don’t know.
I got two e-mails within a day about this sad story.
One was from an organization that believes concealed weapons are the answer. If only those little Amish kids and their teachers had been packing, that might have solved it.
I don’t think so.
The other was from the Mennonites, who were collecting contributions to help their Amish friends. You can reach them at the Mennonite Disaster Service, 1018 Main St., Akron, Pa. 17501. You should write “Amish School Recovery Fund” on your checks.
This is how I will respond and I hope you do too.
What confronts us at this point is one of those overwhelming truths that I guess I have known ever since those awful people planted their kids under the house trailer.
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There is no connection between being good and being safe.
That doesn’t mean I’m embracing darkness, fear, depression or despair.
Goodness, which is very challenging, is its own reward.
It is a chance to sleep well, to mourn the losses of the innocent, to commit to justice, to decency and to compassion.
As soon as we can, we will light a candle for these children at church.
What good will that do?
People have been lighting candles for hundreds of years. When I die, perhaps I will ask God whether he noticed. Maybe he will say, “I know what you meant. Thanks.”
As for me, I have always had my own vision of what eternity might be for children, and that is where I have gathered all these victims, the latest ones too, I have known in my life.
They are beyond threat, beyond pain, beyond anything but happiness, safe somehow in the arms of endless time, scrubbed, happy and living the good lives they so deserve.
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