"Hold your babies a little tighter."

When something horrible happens in the world, you often hear the expression Hold your babies a little tighter.

Tonight, I did.

At bedtime, I did not feel my usual frustration; I rocked my 13 month old to sleep and held her much longer than necessary. I stared at her sweet, sleeping face and felt such thankfulness for her existence and such sorrow for the world we have brought her into.

I have always known that the world could be cruel place but it never affected me so harshly as it has since I became a mother. After all, we did not inherit the Earth from our parents; we borrow it from our children. I am left wondering what kind of world we will leave for Olivia. I am left wondering what we can do. I am left wondering why.

​It is a darker world tonight. I cannot find the fairness in anything, as I lay, filled with gratitude, beside my sleeping baby, while a family in the same city is falling apart over the lost hope for the return of their own sweet baby girl.