Like everyone else, I imagine, I have watched endless news feeds of the recent tragedy –blood-drenched theater patrons seeking asylum in a dazed mass exodus. As I have watched the footage, and both read and watched the commentary, my mind has been churning with questions since the news first broke.

Boil it all down to the most basic of queries and we are all left with one immense ‘WHY?’

Why does a seemingly intelligent, by all accounts ‘normal’ young man with opportunities for a bright future ahead of him, purchase 6,000 rounds of ammunition and plot out a plan designed to injure and kill innocent strangers?

Crimes of passion, while no less heinous, are predicated on irrational, over-zealous human emotion – love and hate can drive the most balanced of people in behaviorally insane directions.

I am in no way offering a pass on these crimes, but I can, at the very least, wrap my head around the “why” and simultaneously offer a variety of solutions to the problem that doesn’t end in homicide.

Walking into a movie theater and shooting into a crowd of complete strangers – this I simply cannot fathom. Is it an act of insanity or is this the personification of genuine evil?

Sitting in the safety of my family room in Easley, hundreds of miles removed from Colorado, I have not personally experienced what these victims or families are having to endure; yet, I am able to translate what I am seeing on the television news into an earnest sympathy and compassion for the events that have unfolded.

I will never again be able to walk into a movie theater without a heightened awareness of my surroundings – my fight or flight instinct at the ready to protect my children. And it makes me sad that this thought is now part of my conscious awareness.

Living in Pickens County (as opposed to Miami) has lulled me into a false sense of security.  The fact of the matter is what happened in Aurora could have happened in Easley. Obviously we all hope nothing like this ever happens here, but no one can definitively guarantee that we are immune to an act of terrorism such as this.

Still, we can’t all live our lives fearing what might happen. As senseless and horrible as the Aurora massacre continues to be, in some way I think it is another reminder for all of us to live each day to the fullest – as if it is our last.

Obviously we have responsibilities that cannot be cast to chance, but we can be a little more mindful of what is truly important in our lives: our children, our spouses, our parents, our siblings. Maybe we can let go of past insults and injuries, replacing those with a hug and an “I love you.”

None of us knows what is going to happen from one minute to the next, and there are things in life for which we cannot plan; the actions of others over which we cannot assert control.

This is why I never let a day (or an hour – who am I kidding?) elapse without telling and showing the people in my life that I love and value them.

Life, as we know it, is fragile; it can be turned upside down and inside out in an instant, when we least suspect it to happen.