There is a lot going on in the news right now! I have really never been a part of the 24-hour news phenomenon.  I used to watch a lot of cable news in the “olden (pre-CNN) days” but I remember the day that changed for me.  

It was April 19, 1995.  I was a stay-at-home mom with 3 little ones; Phil was 8 days old and Lisa and Max were 4 and 2.  Thankfully my in-laws were there for a few days to help me since I had had a caesarean and was still recovering…and Gilles was working crazy springtime hours…and the house was a little busy!  My habit at the time was to watch Canada AM in the morning, the news at noon and then Global News at 5:30.

The Oklahoma City Bombing

April 19, 1995 was the day that Timothy McVeigh drove a truck filled with homemade explosives into the Alfred P. Murragh Federal Building in Oklahoma City killing over 160 people and injuring almost 700 more.  

How could I bring another child into a world where someone could do something like this?

I remember coming downstairs with Phil around lunch time.  Memere and Pepere were watching the news and kept commenting on the tragedy.  I watched the entire broadcast without absorbing anything.  I sat on the couch and fed my son and watched the news without understanding what had happened.  

Then I was in the kitchen getting dinner ready when the 5:30 news came on; Phil was sleeping, and Lisa and Max were at the table playing a game.  I remember watching the newscast and starting to cry quietly with my back turned so the kids couldn’t see me.  It dawned on me that this is what I had missed at lunchtime. 

I was crying because I could never have imagined such a thing happening!  (I think it’s even more sad that it would be so much less of a shock now.)  I remember thinking “how could I bring another child into a world where someone could do something like this?”  I was filled with despair, and, as a usually very optimistic person, this was a strange feeling for me.  

The Change

I moved on and got busy with life, but I also remember when Garth Brooks released the song “The Change” several months later. (I will probably mention his music quite often in this blog as many of his songs place highly on my life’s soundtrack!)

And I hear them saying,
“You’ll never change things
And no matter what you do
It’s still the same thing”
But it’s not the world that I am changing
I do this so, this world will know
That it will not change me

That is the chorus to the song and it comes back to me whenever I feel like the impact I can make on the world is insignificant.  When big world events happen, it is hard not to slip into despair and feel useless.  This was true with 9-11 and school shootings, and it’s true with the race protests that are happening around the world right now.  

I can’t solve the problems that exist in the world around me; there are so many of them and I get overwhelmed when I think that’s what I should be doing.  I can, however, try to learn about the issues and do what I can in my little community to help, whatever that looks like in each situation.  For me that does not mean following the traditional news because I find the 24-hour news cycle makes me very anxious, but listening to podcasts and reading reports from reliable sources when I can find a few quiet moments to absorb the information.

I am never going to change the world…but I won’t let it change me, either!