I Hope You Never Have to Worry

Standing outside Medium’s classroom today, I perused tweets while waiting to watch the BIG WISCONSIN PRESENTATION™. I am surrounded in news all day long, which means I don’t watch the news on television. Ever. Most often, I get breaking news via Twitter, and today that breaking news was like a swift kick in the gut. A six-year-old boy was aboard a runaway hot air balloon. Alone. Never have I heard a news story and had such a visceral reaction. I had to stop looking at it, because I literally felt I was going to get sick. A six-year-old baby was in unimaginable peril at that very second. There’s the painful side of real-time web for you. Of course, all is well that ends well, and we can all breath a collective sigh of relief knowing that the little boy wasn’t aboard the balloon at all, but was instead hiding in his family’s attic, afraid for himself having unleashed his father’s balloon. PHEW. As relieved as a stranger was hundreds of miles away, I can’t begin to imagine the feeling of finding that kid, having imagined the horrifying alternatives.

While he was missing, I made the crucial mistake of checking the trending topics on Twitter in search of links to more information. Twitter was full of people joking about “balloonboy”. Joking. Posting what they considered witty retorts about a boy falling from the sky to his death. Really? When would that ever be funny? Remember that as far as anyone knew at the time, there was a young child in life threatening danger. Then, when the balloon was found without him aboard, came the reports of the missing portion of the balloon and the deputy having “seen something fall from the balloon”. Was it still funny then? According to not a few people, it was. To anyone trying to ameliorate the absolute cruelty and repulsiveness of making those jokes by saying they somehow *knew* that he was safe all along, I. CALL. BULLSHIT. You did not have more information to go on than the emergency response teams searching for his broken body.

I hope you *NEVER* have to worry about a child. I hope you never have, even for a split second, the terror of looking around and realizing that your baby is gone. To that family, thinking their son was first FLOATING AWAY IN THE SKY and then likely dead, that grief was REAL. Why would anyone make light of it? What else is fair game? If Twitter was around when Baby Jessica was trapped in a well, what kind of ugly jackals would have come out of the woodwork thinking they had the most clever thing to tweet about a baby stuck underground with her parents helpless to save her? It’s NOT FUCKING FUNNY.

People have every right to say whatever they want. What I wish for is a world where people don’t *want* to say stupid cruel shit about children being hurt. I don’t understand it. You know what else? I’m GLAD I don’t understand it, that I have more compassion than I have need to try to distance myself from real feelings. Was it because they couldn’t relate to a six-year-old? Was it too foreign? Here, let me help. Six-year-old boys are still very much babies. They are in the first grade. They are inquisitive and experimental and loving creatures. They are not yet too old to snuggle up to their mothers out of embarrassment of what their friends might think. They are losing their first teeth and walk around with goofy jack-o-lantern grins and they are SO PROUD of that fact. They are open wide to the world. They are magical little creatures. Are they human enough now? Okay, great. Next time you hear about something terrible befalling a child, remember that to someone they are a perfect creature. Imagine that perfect creature alone and terrified soaring away in a homemade hot air balloon with no one to comfort them in their darkest hour. Is it still funny? Have some humanity.

The ending today was the BEST possible scenario, and I can’t begin to imagine the head-spinning intoxication in the joy of finding him safe and sound at home…where he will likely stay, grounded for life. I hope this becomes just an embarrassing story they tell to the dates he brings home, AND I hope he grows up to be the kind of person that first sees the humanity in people before he sees the jokes.