This is another story I am going to make you work for (if for some reason you do not know the story).  I hesitated to write about it because I would never want cause more pain, yet this family’s tragedy feels very close to me, it is the unbearable thing no parent wants and as such it has focused my prayers and changed my bedtime.  One of the reasons I regularly stay up until 2 am is because for months and months the dark brought back this story, this tragedy and the best I could pray and read until I was exhausted.  It hurt to know that an ordinary, beautiful family had gone to bed thinking they were safe and woke up in a nightmare.  I know that for Dr. Petit that day and that bad dream never stops.

Two small points of contention:  the lawyer for one of the rapist/kidnapper/murders tried to mitigate his client’s sexual assault description in a public statement.  This seemed so utterly insensitive and blind.  A little girl died a horrible death after being subjected to a sexual attack and hours of unspeakable fear and you (the lawyer) decide to be helpful and make a public clarification of the attack??

And the assailant in question made egregious statements about Dr. Petit who was brutally attacked in his own house and lay bleeding for hours as his family was raped, terrorized, murdered.  The assailant had the audacity to say that Dr. Petit should have fought harder to protect his family!

Nothing about how he should not have had to fight off attackers in his own home in the middle of the night.

My prayers will always be with the survivors of this beautiful family.  Irreplaceable.