Answering why

I had initially kept this set of thoughts private but so many people found it helpful that I’m publishing it in the hopes it continues to do more good.

The second hardest moment after the attacks at the Marathon for me, after finding out that friends, family, and colleagues were safe and unharmed, was answering the question “Why?” when my kid asked me. Why would someone want to do this? How do you explain this?

The answer I came up with made sense at the time and still does. Good and evil exist in a balance in this world. Evil will never go away because that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Evil exists to wake us up, to shake away everything unimportant, and to help us find the true heroes around us and inside of us. And perhaps, I said, to find that hero inside yourself when the time comes.

Only in darkness can we see our inner light.

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