To have and to hold

I came across the above words some days ago as I was trying to make sense of two articles in one local newspaper concerning two ‘murder suicides.’  Either by design or purely by accident, the two stories appear on the same page. As I am sure everyone else did, I read the articles with profound pain and sadness.

Rearing a child is both an immensely pleasurable and yet imperiously mammoth task. No matter how hard one tries to be a ‘perfect parent,’ as human beings we are likely to commit errors and thus there always exists a scope for introspection and consequent improvement. As I went through the stories, I could only think of the children, who not only lost both parents in the most gruesome and embarrassing manner, but also that they probably witnessed it and even saw it coming. To them, it has always been a matter of when.