Most of us remember that exact moment we felt like moms. Now imagine facing a moment when you realize you no longer have children? That's what Dinyal New is grappling with right now. The mother of teenagers has lost her two sons in the past three weeks.
New's 13- and 19-year-old sons were both murdered, gunned down in separate acts of senseless violence in Oakland, California. How the 41-year-old social worker's assistant is still standing is a miracle.
To lose one child is devastating.
To lose two? In 19 days?
It's unthinkable.
It's heartbreaking.
It's unacceptable.
One person isn't supposed to be subjected to this much tragedy, isn't supposed to bear this much pain. One family dealing with the murder of a 13-year-old isn't supposed to turn around and, just weeks later, put a second child in the ground.
What happened to honor among thieves, so to speak? To kids being off-limits?
It may be cliched to rail against the world we're living in, but the fact remains that a woman has lost her 13-year-old son and her 19-year-old son in the past three weeks. The former, an eighth-grader, was shot while walking home from the Boys & Girls Club. The latter, a college student with dreams of one day opening his own business, while riding in his car with a friend.
These weren't bad kids doing bad things. The world should have kept them safe because they are kids, and kids should be protected at all costs.
But it didn't. And so today we have a mom who -- in perhaps the most heartwrenching news interview I've seen in a long time -- was forced to use the words, "I have no more kids."
All because some monsters thought it was a good idea to shoot some kids?
If you could, what would you want to say to this mom?
Image via Valters Krontals/Flickr