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Hard part of the job

It seems like some of the best stories are some of the hardest to do.  I’m not talking about the research or the editing, I’m talking about emotionally hard.  Sunday and Monday I had two hard stories.  On Sunday I talked with a mother who lost her 7 year old little boy in a plane crash only 5 days earlier.  His Dad couldn’t even talk to me because he was so extremely sad and upset.  It is so hard to sit there and watch a mother cry as she tells you she’s lost her best friend and recalls memories of her son.  No parent should have to bury their child, but unfortunately that’s reality sometimes and it’s my job to tell their story.

On Monday I went to Enterprise, AL and saw what was left of Enterprise High School.  (EHS is the school that was destroyed when an EF-4 tornado tore through killing 8 students when walls collapsed).  I saw the footage on TV and in pictures when it happened, but it’s different seeing it in person.  I talked to the Assistant Principal, and hearing him remember what happened that day is heart-wrenching.  He was telling me about the conversation he had that morning with one of the students who didn’t make it out alive.  One thing that I brought a smile to my face was an unexpected coincidence.  The assistant principal told me about a card he had gotten from an elementary student and how much it meant to him that EHS is in so many people’s prayers.  He pulled out the card to show me and I was shocked to see that it came from an elementary school in Citrus County, FL (that’s where I’m from).  In fact, the principal of that school is a family friend.  I always think of the world as such a big place, but then there are little things that happen that show me how small it actually is and how we’re all interconnected somehow.

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