Good always wins.

“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.” —Fred Rogers

 

It was a rough day. A no-good, very bad day, to quote children's book author Judith Voirst. For not only was it tax-day, a very stressful day for all procrastinators and USPS employees, but it was also a day of scary things. First, it was scary for lots of mommies, daddies, and little ones in the city where I grew up. In January, a threat was made that many children would be killed at school on this day.  It's so awful that I can barely stand to type the words.  Thankfully, either the threat-maker didn't mean it, or the amped-up security did its job, because it ended up a non-event, and all the little (and not-so-little) ones made it home safely.  Second, as I'm sure you've already seen on the news, two bombs went off at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Sadly, not everyone arrived home safely at the end of this one.

 

I read the articles and watched the videos while Nora was napping this afternoon, but I didn't turn on the news when she was awake. I know she's too young to even be afraid when she sees the pictures (heck, she'd probably see a bird somewhere on the screen and say "oooh! dir-dee!"), but I didn't want to risk it.

 

But someday something scary will happen again, and she'll happen to see it on the news. Or she'll hear about it on the bus. Or read it in the newspaper. And she'll ask questions, and I hope when the time comes that I'm as smart and eloquent at Mr. Roger's mom, and I'll remind her to look for the good. For there are always good people who come out of the woodwork during tragedies.  They are the staff at Sandy Hook, the firefighters of 9/11, the EMS and volunteers at the Boston Marathon, the soldiers, the doctors, the nurses, the Mother Teresas, the kind passer-bys. They exist every day, too - not just the days that make the news.  I know they can't save everyone - we know that all too well - but I know that in the end, they are going to do enough.  Good always wins.  Sometimes it has to fight for a long time, but it always wins.

 

Maybe my glasses are a little too rosy, and maybe that's easy to do when I spend the majority of my days with someone who says "hi!" to everyone we pass at the grocery store.  But the people who know me best will tell you that I've always been this way. I see the good, and if I'm struggling to find it, I seek it out.  Because I know it's there.  Good always wins.  So even though tonight I'm asking God for safety and peace and for good to make a huge insurgence, one of the emotions I feel the most is grateful. For if you take your eyes off the cloud of smoke, you see amidst the chaos, the "helpers" running in.