People die, it happens every day. Violence happens all the time.

I have stopped asking why, because there isn’t ever going to be an answer that I can accept.

It’s too much to bear. The victims of the Tucson shooting didn’t deserve to die. But as I sat glued to the news, my mind was with the families and the pain and shock I knew they would be in.

Then I found out one of the victims was a little girl, and I cried. I cried for her family, because I have a sliver of an idea what their lives will be like. I don’t know the specific pain that they are feeling, but I do know the exquisite agony of losing one of the brightest lights in your life.

Christina Taylor Green was a beautiful nine year old girl whose father is employed by the Los Angeles Dodgers. Long-time readers will know that I was employed by the Dodgers until the end of 2008. I have been thinking a lot about what I would say to him, since we have so many people in common. And….I don’t know.

I wish that I would have some sort of perfect thing to say, but I don’t. I am a realist. I can’t tell him it will get easier, I can’t tell him he’ll have peace. I can’t tell his wife that the little girl that looked like her will come back, because I know that’s all she wants to hear. I can’t lie. Their life as they knew it is ruined.

And above all, I can’t answer the question that they will ask themselves for the rest of their lives: Why?

I wish I knew. I wish I knew why it had to be Christina. I wish I knew why it had to be Madeline.