I'd take the birds and bees conversation a hundred times over the ones Ilon and I have been having the last couple of months. Sex is easy. Hatred, sickness, evil, devastation, is not. It started with Jessica, the sweet little girl who was lost on her way to school in Colorado. Ilon and I started praying for her. So of course she asked every day if she had been found, and we had to talk about what happened to her. Not in detail, just as little as I could say without lying or sobbing. That's when monsters became real to Ilon. Not the pretend kind in cartoons, the kind of people in the real world. The kind we can't really even comprehend. The next conversation came when another girl, Malala, was shot in a school bus in Pakistan because she was speaking out against the Taliban. And we prayed for her to survive and recover.
And now this. I did not plan to tell her about it. She caught me crying. I told her some kids were hurt at school and I was sad for them. We walked to her school today and it was covered in white snow, untouched by anyone. She had Christmas music playing from her backpack, it was quiet except for the guitar and piano. She made snow angels around her school, praying for angels to protect the schools.
We talked on the way back about how some people have hard hearts, that we don't always know who they are but God does. And we can pray for them, for God to change their hearts before they can hurt others.
This world is hard to explain. My only answers are that we have to pray, without ceasing.

We got home and she asked for yogurt, and to go sledding. Because she's 6. And hasn't mentioned anything since. I am so thankful I have my 6 year old safe with me, and am praying without ceasing for the families right now that do not.