January 24, 2011A few days ago I read Joe Posananski's column in Sports Illustrated with a great sense of sadness. The tragedy that took place in my home state of 33 years has been in the news repeatedly for weeks with the talking heads all offering their opinions of who is to blame. Sports Illustrated is not your normal media channel for covering such stories, but in this case the senseless killing of a 9 year old girl, the daughter of a top baseball scout and granddaughter of Dallas Green, the former manager of a World Series Phillies team, the story became relevant.
I was taken by the words of of a girl describing her deceased friend Christina. The words were written as only another child might write about a close friend: "Baseball, reading, pretty, animals, politician, math, funny and HAPPY" .
At age 9 this is the world of happy child. Not all children are blessed with such a world, but Christina apparently was. I can recall my own childhood (yes, I still have a pretty good memory when it comes to my early youth) Baseball was my life. Mickey Mantle was the King of my universe with Yogi Berra the Crown Prince. The Brooklyn Dodgers were the enemy and the New York Giants just a neutral country. Girls were not quite in the picture yet and I was smart enough to get reasonably good grades without it interfering with my baseball. We did not have much money but it never seemed to matter as all my friends were in the same boat.
Christina was in that wonderful time bubble of childhood. Were she not at the Safeway that morning she would have eventually moved on to her teens, where life today is so much more complicated. Fast forward another twenty years and she might have followed Gabrielle Giffords into the U.S. Congress. But this was not to be. Fate would put her in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The ancient Greeks believed that Moirae, the goddess of fate and destiny, was responsible for what happens to mere mortals. The destiny of a Greek was not decided at birth like many cultures believe, but rather Moirae pulled the strings and she could change her mind, and your fate, at any time.
Perhaps this tragedy could have been avoided. Clearly, the warning signs were there for this deranged gunman and clearly we could have made it much more difficult for him to buy a gun. There is more than enough blame to go around here, but sometimes "Moirae" holds all the cards.
I am reminded of the story of the Titanic. The ship was late leaving port by nearly two hours because another ship had slipped its mooring and was blocking the Titanic's route out of the harbor. Had this delay not have occurred, would she have missed the iceberg? Would 1500 lives been saved? Would some of these people have gone on to change the course the world would take over the next 50 years? We can't answer these questions of course, but it falls into a big "what if".
On a bright warm sunny day in Tucson a happy nine year old girl walked out her door to meet her U.S. Congresswoman. She and five others will not have the chance to experience their own futures and possibly impact ours.
I won't go through life thinking that fate will decide my destiny. Of course I will try to do what I can to make sure the odds work in my favor. But the next time I get a clean bill of health from my doctor, or avoid a reckless driver, I will smile and think how lucky I am. Or when I see a magnificent sunset, or enjoy a day of fresh powder skiing, or make a hole-in-one, or watch the Ducks eventually win the National Championship, I will quietly thank Moirae for being on my side for the time being. This is more than I can ask for.
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