You just never know…

February 15, 2008

I went home a little early yesterday to pick up the wife and try to beat the Valentine’s Day rush to a local restaurant we like.  On the way to the restaurant my phone rang and I saw it was my nephew.  We had been exchanging text messages for a week or so.  We were trying to plan a trip together to Las Vegas around my birthday late March, but he just got tapped for management training at his company so it was looking like it wasn’t going to happen.  Anyway, since my wife and I were in a good conversation, I let the call go to voicemail.  In a few seconds I heard the beep that told me he had left a message.

On the way to the restaurant, we also heard my wife’s phone beep that she had got a text also.

So we get to the restaurant and there’s an hour wait - actually not bad considering.  We take a couple chairs in the bar and I head over to get us a couple glasses of wine.  By the time I get back to the table, my wife is on her phone.  She hangs up and tells me that was my nephew calling to say he and his girlfriend are okay.

 ”Okay?  What does he mean?” I said.  See - neither of us had seen any news items at all about the NIU shootings.  My nephew recently graduated from NIU and his girlfriend and quite a few of his friends still go there.  My nephew still lives close to campus but was actually in Wisconsin for his training.  His girlfriend was apparently not on campus.

Phone lines and towers were so overloaded he said text messages weren’t even being delivered as there were a couple of his friends they couldn’t get hold of.  I called him first thing this morning to see if they had tracked them down and got his voicemail.  Not unusual as my nephew isn’t exactly a morning person, if you know what I mean (following in his uncle’s footsteps there…).

I will never understand what drives a person to wake up one day and decide that this is the day I’m going to randomly shoot a bunch of people and then kill myself.  It’s disconcerting to see this as a new development in our society and one that appears to be growing.  I hear the people on the news say police don’t currently have a motive for the shooting and I can’t help thinking “Motive???  He was friggin’ nuts - that’s his motive.”

Thankfully, this story appears to have had a happy ending for my family.   My heart goes out to the families of the 6 victims and everyone else injured in the event. 

Never take any day for granted…

Posted in Way off topic