Take a Sad Song and Make It Better

Photo credit: ABC News / AP Photo / Brennan Linsley

Today is Monday, July 22, 2013.

Saturday was the one-year anniversary of the horrific theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado, where a madman walked into a packed movie theater during the midnight showing of the latest Batman film was in progress.  Twelve people died in the shooting, and 70 were injured, including Eugene Han, who was shot in the hip and knee, and Kristin Davis, who sustained injuries in the course of getting out of the theater.  Han and Davis had been childhood friends starting in the fourth grade, and had begun dating about two years before the shooting.  Han says he had thought about proposing to his girlfriend before the shooting, but hadn't yet got around to it.  Nine months later, he knew he had to propose, "because you don't know what's going to happen after tomorrow."  He asked Davis what she would think of marrying on the anniversary of the shooting. 

It took Davis about 30 minutes to decide.   She was worried about taking a sad anniversary and making it into a good day, but then realized that it was the right course of action.  "That way we can make good memories and start a new chapter of our lives rather than allowing this memory from a year ago to stick with us every single year," she explained.   Their wedding was attended by friends who were also survivors of the theater shooting, thereby giving their friends something good to think about on that day.

I think they did the right thing.  If we allow a terrible memory to mar our lives every year, we get stuck in the past.  I doubt that these young people will ever totally forget the shooting, but they have taken steps to put it into context in relation to the rest of their lives.   In the words of the famous Beatles tune, "Take a sad song and make it better. 

I wish them well on their life journey.  :-)