Sunday, August 21, 2011

No revision in life

Last night my husband and I were informed about an old friend of ours who has ruined his life. Apparently, he and his wife split, there was a custody battle over their son, and one night our friend shot and killed his wife. We were obviously shocked at this news at first, but upon further thinking, it wasn't so surprising.

Some people have a deep passion about certain things: spouse, sport, child, hobby, etc. You take that away and all reasoning facilities disappear. Our friend was one of the smartest people we know. If he had been thinking logically, no one would have found the body and no one would have ever suspected he'd had anything to do with her disappearance. But what happened must have been  fit of passion over the child. He loved that boy more than anything. More than his wife, obviously. And in his passion he lashed out and got caught. He will probably spend the rest of his life in prison, possibly on death row.

It's this kind of passion I've never had. In some ways, I feel bereft that others can feel so much more deeply than I can about their lives. Even though this is a tragedy, I don't feel anything except disappointment and sadness for our friend, the son, and the family of the wife. I feel worse about the fact I DON'T feel anger.

Then again, I don't think I would ever get that angry about losing something/someone that I would kill a human being. That's a definite advantage.

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