A Tragic and Untimely Death...

An Amber Alert was sent out around noon today in my California town. The story went that he was playing with a friend in front of his house around 10:30am when a car pulled up and a man dressed in black including a ski mask jumped out, shot the boy and grabbed and pulled him in to the car and left. The friend ran home and told his mother who called the police.

Responding within minutes the police scoured the area for hours. Even though we took advantage of my husband being home and spent a family day together on an outing, the story of the boy was not far from our minds. We returned home in time for the 5 o'clock news to find out that the boy's body had been discovered in a fenced off sump not 500 feet from his home. Pending further investigation they now think that the boys were playing in the sump area when the boy fell, or jumped in to a hole that caved in around him. After 6 hours of searching, the boy was found dead....

If anything good came from this episode, it has made a dramatic impact on my children. I think they better understand, now, WHY we don't allow them to play in front of our house without supervision. WHY we keep them within eye-shot any time we are out running around. But most importantly, I think they better understand WHY they should always tell the truth. Even in moments when they are afraid of maybe getting in to trouble, it is ALWAYS best to be honest. Even in talking about it between themselves they ask, "Why didn't that boy just tell the truth? Maybe then someone could have gone to help....?"

It is very sad.... I can't help but feel for the family of the boy that died, but also for the family of the boy that still isn't recanting his kidnapping story... There are just so many "what if's" that we will never know the answers to... God rest this young man's eternal soul, and grant peace to his family and friends left to mourn his death...