It was a normal Wednesday morning, like any other day. I was stretching on the mat when I saw my brother, Faramarz, coming in the door. By looking at the way he walked in, I knew something was wrong. Since the birth of his new daughter, Madeline, two weeks ago, he has been in such a good mood lately. That’s what bothered me about the way he walked in.
I waited for a few moments and then walked towards him in our pro-shop. He was standing there quite still. I noticed his hands were covering his eyes. He was crying. I didn’t know what to say. "How is Madeline?" I asked him. He told me she was fine. He went ahead, telling me what he had just heard on the radio. "There was a bombing in Oklahoma." He said in a sad voice. "A lot of people got killed, including a bunch of kids that were in a kindergarten." He went ahead telling me that normally hearing news like this wouldn’t affect him that much. But now it’s different. "What would I do if that would happen to Madeline?" He asked.
I didn’t know what to say. I am not a father yet. I don’t know what that would feel like. All I know is that, for the rest of the day, I kept thinking about what happened. I kept thinking why. Why would someone want to do such thing? What would motivate someone to take so many lives? Later on that week I saw a picture of a firefighter holding a baby in his arms in the newspaper. Now I know what it means when they say, "a picture is worth a thousand words..."
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