Sorrow and Community

The warmth of the season has come late to Southern California in this troubled spring of 1999. Distant events in war-torn Europe, the horrors of Littleton, Colo., and nature’s destructive power in Oklahoma and Kansas have reduced the world to a concerned and grieving village. When tragedy struck home in Costa Mesa this past week, it seemed for a moment that life itself was spinning out of control.

Try as we might to adjust to images of mourning teenagers, nothing prepares us for the sight of preschoolers encountering the violent loss of their classmates. In a single incident, the safety zone between the innocent time of childhood and the grim realities of an adult world suddenly was reduced by years.

Sometimes when bad things happen, nothing in the search for motives, such as media violence or absentee parents, seems to compute at all.

Even the elements of road rage and a restraining order involving the Costa Mesa suspect fall short of providing any explanation for why a man willfully would take the lives of two kids at play. Police say he drove his car into the school to “execute” innocent children.

We know at such times that for all our efforts to build community, our hopes can be held hostage, or in some cases wrecked, by the actions of a single individual. This is a time, however, to take stock of small things to be thankful for: that the suspect didn’t get away and that police have him in custody, that they have charged him with murder for the heinous act they allege he committed and that more were not killed in the atrocity last Monday.

The community has begun the slow process of reckoning with the tragedy. On Wednesday, a crowd of about 1,000 filled Costa Mesa’s Lighthouse Coastal Community Church, across the street from the day-care center playground.

Today, the families will attend personal services. Our hearts go out to them, along with a well-done to those who have affirmed the strength of their “community,” the many friends and neighbors who gave support and comfort.