Will we ever understand? (From Bournemouth Echo)

Will we ever understand?

7:30am Wednesday 28th July 2010 in

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HAVE you ever seen a more heart-rending picture? Cute little Phoebe, with her hair in bunches, beams and screws her eyes in that way that two-year-olds do when asked to smile for a photo. In front of her, her little one-year-old sister, Nereya, stares wide-eyed at the camera. And behind them dad holds them protectively, with a Father Christmas hat on his head, grinning with apparent joy.

Was it their mum, Vicki, who was taking the photo? Perhaps saying something like, “Come on! Big smiles!” and maybe pulling a funny face to make them giggle? I don’t know.

What I do know is that they were like your family photos or mine. And that anyone reading the reports of that most terrible of tragedies will feel numbed by the awfulness of whatever happened.

And echoing in our minds will be the words of the children’s distraught grandma, crying, “My babies are dead! All my babies are dead!”

The question remaining, of course, is “why?” It is beyond comprehension. And if we ever find out the answer I doubt that we’ll understand it. What despair can lead to such agonising consequences?

What I do know is that it puts everything else into grim perspective.

And I know that the thoughts of everyone are with that poor, anguished grandmother and the other relatives of that tragic family.

And I know everyone is sharing in that feeling of utter helplessness, wishing we could think of some little thing to do to offer a crumb of comfort to their unimaginable, broken-hearted distress.