Manchester bombing

I suppose this terrorist bombing across the ocean hit closest to home when I read and heard stories about parents coming to pick up their kids as the concert was letting out.

I've been there. Many, many times.

A Black 47 concert in Ireland many years ago

During the years my daughters were concert-going teen-agers, I must have either dropped them off, picked them up, or gone along with them to a hundred concerts or festivals in at least a half-dozen states. I have seen their tired but estactic faces afterward, knowing the anticipation was worthwhile. I have experienced the waits outside the venues for the concerts to end, and then scanning the thousands of joyous smiles for ones that looked familiar.

It sent shivers across my back when I heard a father speaking on NPR about the terror of standing outside the bombed arena in Manchester with hundreds of other parents, frantically searching for his two daughters. I swear I wasn't crying when I learned he found them together, holding on to each other, looking anxious, then breaking into a run and pushing through the crowd when they spotted him.

I know this post isn't book-related. But it's something I had to say