Cold night, family pictures, bright lights on the dead

I thought I was done blogging and working for the night. But, I was just about finished watching West Wing when the phone rang.

The next thing I know, I’m deep into the night, standing on a just-mowed lawn, staring inside a house at a table full of family pictures. They belong to the 77 year-old woman who was dead on the floor, her son who found her, and her husband who is in a local hospital recovering from some knife wounds.

It looks like her husband suffers from some sort of paranoid dementia. He thought she was out to get him and he stabbed her in the chest with a kitchen knife.

It’s one of those things that will get little attention even on our local news. But you have to think, despite how enormous the recent tragedy is, it will likely take a backseat for that son. A grown man who walks in, finds his old mother dead, and finds out his dad did it.

There is no sense on the Tragedy Scale.

I’m going home now to hug my wife and let my dog lick me on the face.