What's Going On: When words fail to provide any comfort

I spent the Labor Day weekend camping with friends in north Missouri and one of them had a stunning revelation: his son-in-law of 10 plus years had been arrested for molesting his own nine-year-old daughter.

Shocked doesn’t even begin to describe my reaction. Through his father-in-law, whom I’ve been friends with for more than 20 years, I knew this man well, or at least I thought I did. We had shared many a laugh, watched countless football games and played thousands of hands of cards together.

Regardless, I apparently didn’t know anything about him and neither did my friend whose granddaughter was the victim.

Further compounding the shock of this event was the job occupation of the wife and mother of the victim: she’s a sergeant with the local police department.

Throw in another family member who is on the sheriff’s department and one more who works for family services and one would think this kind of behavior would have been detected years earlier.

But it wasn’t, which is what makes this sort of crime even more terrifying than the fact it involves children.

When someone steals your car, you know it. When someone breaks into your house, you usually know it. Even when someone steals something as non-materialistic as your “identity,” you usually find out within a month when that first credit card bill arrives.

This, however, is a crime that can go on for weeks, months, years and even decades before anyone ever knows it happened.

Regardless though, this was a situation I was poorly prepared to handle. When I walk into a hospital to visit a friend, or a funeral home or church to console a grieving family, I usually know what to say to encourage and support them.

This time though, I was at a complete loss. There are so many emotions at play, including anger, resentment, betrayal and naturally, the aforementioned shock. Throw in a healthy dose of self-doubt and fear of what may happen in the future and suddenly, words seem very lacking.

Even worse, our justice/prison system offers even less comfort to the affected family. As a first-time offender who is fully cooperating and expecting to reach a plea bargain, the accused probably will receive no more than 10 years in prison. With good behavior, he’s back out before his daughter graduates from high school.

I remember an old Bill Cosby comedy routine in which he cautions the audience to “never challenge worse,” as life can always be worse than it seems right now.

With a nine-year-old’s innocence shattered, a family possibly fractured forever and an overwhelming amount of anger and resentment, right now would seem the time for my friend to make that challenge.

Gregory Orear is the General Manager/Editor of the Red Oak Express and Glenwood Opinion-Tribune. He can be contacted at publisher@redoakexpress.com.