My heart is breaking today. It has been breaking with every news alert that flashed across my cell phone throughout the night. Every alert of another human life fallen made me feel anguish, desperation, bewildered, devastation. From the recent mass shooting in Florida to the bombings in Turkey, Bangladesh, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia to the recent lives lost in Minnesota, and Louisiana, to the shooting and killing of police officers last evening in Texas . . . What has happened to our sense of humanity?

We mourn for the families of those who have lost lives. We weep for the joys and love these shootings have haphazardly and suddenly ripped from their families’ daily existence. We hope for peace during these tragic, senseless acts that leave their communities feeling hollow. We hope for unity in this fragmented nation and world of ours.

I find myself asking, is this rock bottom? Please let this be rock bottom. How much more can we escalate with hatred? With anger? With our inequalities? With our attacks against one another? How many more lives? Devastation is reverberating through our nation, and reactions span the spectrum from disbelief to anger to outrage to deep anguish.

As I plugged along the overnight shift, with news alerts flashing across my phone stacking on the heartbreak and terror occurring across the nation, I am reminded of my last patient of the morning. She was a kind woman who had gotten her hand slammed in her back door and came in with a bloodied finger. As I washed her finger off and started to stitch it back together, the background news she was watching was reporting about the events of the night, of the officers that had lost their lives. About the presumed shooter that was now dead. There was anger and hatred in the man’s voice that I could hear giving a speech. He was saying how police officers have been made targets, ultimately faulting our president. I listened while hunched over the bright light shining overhead, carefully pulling together wound edges with each stitch. The woman said, “I just worry about my grandbaby. She is 10 months old. She is my world.  Do you want to see her picture?” Of course I wanted to see her picture.

In the midst of all this hatred, we turn to our loved ones. We worry about their future. We feel heartbreak for those that can no longer worry about their loved ones’ futures. In the midst of all this, I remember the love. During this hateful, angry broadcast, I will remember this woman’s love for her granddaughter and the picture she eagerly presented of her granddaughter in that adorable ruffle-butt swimsuit, proudly standing while holding onto an oak cabinet.

None of us can predict where we go from here. We hope that we will start to unite. Start to heal together. Start to propagate love. And this starts with you and me. This starts with us and extends to those around us, especially to our children.

There are a few things I am absolutely intolerant about with my children.

1. Acting unkindly towards others
2. Disrespect
3. Acting without compassion

I have zero tolerance for these things. There is absolutely no circumstance in which hateful, disrespectful, heartless behavior is valid and acceptable. My kids know that any such behavior will be met with their mother’s wrath. They know better.

And here we are. As a nation of Americans. Propagating hate. Propagating disrespect. Trying to find the right steps forward in the aftermath of heartless crimes.

The one thing I take solace in right now, is that there is love and it will shine through. I will continue to teach my kids that color is just a color. That sexual orientation is no different than being right-handed or left-handed–it is a part of who we are. That females and males alike are competent and strong. That religion of any spectrum is faith that helps each individual guide them through life. That love is greater than hate.

That love is greater than hate.

That love is greater than hate.

That love is greater than hate.