For What It's Worth

You read a lot of whining here about how tough it is to be the parent of a teenager. I am that designated whiner. I can relate to all those parents who struggle with the ups and downs of the roller coaster of adolescence. It's a tough ride, but even the highest peaks and lowest lows have some bearing on the finished product: an adult that you can look at and say, "Well, that was all worth it." I know this because these are the words my mother uses to describe the years we spent, periodically, going head-to-head. Looking back, I wish that I could have been a better son. I wish that I could take back some of the things I did and said. But now that it's all over, it seems as though it was all worth it.
Which brings us to the sad case of the fifteen year old who killed his parents. It's not the first time something like this has happened, nor will it be the last. It is the first time that we knew the kid and his parents. Not our best friends, and it had been some years since we had crossed paths: middle school and high school came along and our paths diverged. Still, we found ourselves around the dinner table remembering when. We remembered when we took this kid along to the movies. We remembered how, even at the end of elementary school, this kid was very clear about what it was going to take to be popular. We remembered how his parents had let him play video games rated "M" for "Mature." We tried to make sense of what had happened. Along with the rest of the people who had any connection to the family, we tried to make sense.
How could this have happened? Did they make the right choices? Was there anything that could have changed this sad story? Why do bad things happen to good people? We went to bed that night with a quandary that outshone the worries about a math grade. We woke up with the lingering effects of a restless night's sleep. We woke up with fresh perspective. We went back to the work of raising our son. Sometimes it's difficult, but it's worth it.