Mr. Mom I am not

Amanda Knox and Her Parents

American student Amanda Knox was convicted of murder in Italy this week and sentenced to 26 years in prison for the murder of her flat mate, Meredith Kercher in Perugia Italy.  I can’t begin to imagine the anguish and helplessness both sets of parents must be feeling.  When our children our young we are their protectors.  We do everything in our power to keep them from harm, physical, emotional, and mental.  We start from day one making sure we have the right car seats and cribs.  We run around like crazy baby proofing the house plugging up electrical sockets moving breakable items from baby’s reach  and removing any traces of adult habitation.  When they start school we wait with them for the bus to keep them safe from the predators we read about in the newspaper.  We go to parent teacher conferences and chew our lip when they take an especially hard hit on the gridiron.

As they get older we check out their friends, spy on their Facebook pages and maybe even snoop around their bedrooms when they are out.  We wouldn’t dream of letting them drive the junk box cars we had as kids and if they ever would kill them for doing half the stuff we did in high school.

We try to reinforce values and decency by bringing them to church, Boy Scouts,  and summer camp.  We try to have dinner together and spend quality time with them as they get older to remind them that they always have someone they can turn to when they need to. We do everything we can to nurture our kids and help them grow up to be caring, productive members of society and to live a long healthy life.  

But what happens when all we have done is shattered in an instant.  How do we react to the phone call in the middle of the night?  Maybe it’s the call telling us our child is gone. Or maybe it is the one telling us our child has committed a terrible crime.  How do we deal with the news that hits us like a sledgehammer and changes so many lives in an instant?    Do we blame ourselves?  I am sure we must to some degree.  How much time do we spend thinking about the  what ifs?  And how many sleepless nights do we spend anguishing over what else we could have done? Do we think why couldn’t we have been there to protect her. Or why couldn’t I have been there to stop her.

The parent’s pain must be far greater than the child’s.  The child who is gone pain has ended.  The parents have just begun.  The parents of a child who may be going to jail will suffer a sentence far crueler than the sentence the child suffers.  The pain and anguish for both parents must be incredible. A parent’s kids are always his children and one must always feel like they must protect them.

But a child is not a child forever.  As much as we may want to always be able to take our little one upon our lap and hold her close protecting her from the world we can’t.  Kids grow up and turn into adults. Most adults are good, all make mistakes.  Some mistakes seem terrible when the happen but fade away over time. Some mistakes change a lot of lives forever.  Sometimes people end up in the wrong place at the wrong time and there is nothing we can do to change that.

Still a parent’s pain probably never fades. Hopefully it dulls somewhat but I am sure it is always there everyday day after day.  Amanda Knox was convicted of a vicious murder and deserves to spend the rest of her life in jail.

Meredith Kercher ‘s parents will never see their daughter again. They will never hear her voice or her laughter or never be able to have her sit on their laps and protect her from the world again. Their grief must be immeasurable.

Amanda Knox’s parents are in pain too.  They will see their daughter but they will have to see her waste away behind bars maybe never getting out before  they pass away themselves.

My prayers and thoughts go out to both of them.