In Ella's Eyes

There were streamers and noisemakers, singing and dancing, the crowd counting down the final seconds until they rang in a brand new year. Ella had never been allowed to stay up to join the New Years Eve celebration before, she had always been shuffled off to bed with the promise that maybe next year she would be old enough. Not this year, this year she had argued her case and to her surprise, her parents had agreed. This year would be the year that sweet, little Ella would experience what she had only dreamed of. She imagined a whimsical night filled with bright lights, glittering dresses, everyone laughing and joyful; she could barely contain her excitement at the mere thought of observing it all. Breathing it in, committing every detail to memory. If only Ella had known that the night she had been waiting for would never arrive, that her entire world would be turned upside down, everything she knew, changed forever.

It was December 31st, it was one of those dreadfully deceitful days where you look out the window and see your previously gloomy gray world has been transformed into a bright, sunny wonderland. Only to find that when you step out your front door, the bitter cold slaps you in the face and steals your breath. Ella did not care, today was the day she officially became a member of the "big kids" group, no longer a baby to be teased about her early bedtime. She was determined to have the best day, even if she had to help with the cleaning, it was for the party which meant she would not complain. She hummed one happy song after another as she went about her tasks, giving it her best effort. She was glowing with pride as her mother praised what a wonderful job she had done. And late in the afternoon, when every surface gleamed and not a speck of dirt could be found, Ella was released from her chores to go upstairs and rest before getting herself ready for the night ahead. She had just settled down onto her bed with her latest library pick, when she heard her mother's phone ring.

There was no crash, no explosion, no violent, earth-quaking sign to hint at the events that were currently unfolding. Ella had given her mother's phone call no more than a passing thought before returning to her reading. It was only when her mother called her and her siblings downstairs that she would begin to understand something was not right. Filing down the stairs behind her older brother and sister, it was immediately apparent that whatever their mother had just been told had devastated her. She stood in front of the living room window, broken, something Ella had not witnessed in her short life. Trying to hold herself together to relay the tragic news to her sweet babies, to find a way to explain what she herself could not understand. She embraced her children, breathed them in, trying to gather up her courage. She could see their questioning faces, the fear in their eyes, they may not know what was happening yet but they knew it wasn't good. Several times she started to speak and nearly choked on the words she wasn't sure she could bring herself to say. Quietly, she began to tell them that their father had been in an accident, that he was hurt very badly and he would not be coming home, not today and not ever again. In the hours that followed, Ella would learn that it wasn't an accident that had stolen her father, it was not some unfair twist of fate, it was a methodical, calculated act that had torn her life apart. She would also learn, that her father was not the only one who would not be returning home that day, there would be a total of 259 lives cut terribly short when it was all said and done.

A lone bomber, a single perpetrator, an act of domestic terrorism, that's what the news kept saying. Ella didn't know what a perpetrator was, had no idea what an act of domestic terrorism meant. It was all so confusing, her young mind trying to make sense of adult things that adults couldn't even understand. Why would anyone do this? Why did they want to hurt my daddy? She asked these questions over and over again, to any adult that would listen. They kept saying the same things, that the man who did this wasn't trying to just hurt one person, they wanted to hurt as many people as possible, that it wasn't about anything her father had done, that it wasn't really about him at all. To Ella, that didn't make any sense, how could it not be about her daddy? He was the most important person in her life, she could not understand what any of it meant. Her mother did not want them watching the news, she said they were too young to see and hear what the news was reporting but since almost every channel was reporting on what had happened, her mother told them not to turn on the tv at all. When she could Ella would turn the tv on with the volume off and try to quickly absorb as much as she could before shutting it off to avoid getting caught. The news said the man was 43 years old, a father of 2 children, that he had worked as a custodian in the building, that he had been planning and preparing for this for months. Months. That seemed like an eternity to Ella.

The entire country was watching what happened, trying to understand what had led this man to commit this terrible crime. In the days and weeks that followed the bombing, reporters would camp out on the lawns of some of the known victims families, bombarding them with questions every time they opened the door. It almost felt like they were the ones who had done something wrong, prisoners in their own home. Ella's mother kept the windows covered, the doors locked, she could barely get out of bed her grief was so consuming. The police had come, like they always did on the tv show when something bad happened. They said how sorry they were for their loss, how much they wish something like this had never happened, wondering if it could have been avoided. She heard her mother ask about the man responsible, they said they couldn't give her anymore information than the news had reported, that it was an ongoing investigation and they would provide answers as soon as they could. Her mother raged at the police, saying she didn't understand why they couldn't tell her anything, that man was dead too. They repeated their condolences and made a quick exit.

It had been five days since the bombing, since the world as Ella knew it, had been forever changed. The news showed pictures of the man and his family, played video of reporters trying to get a comment from his wife or asking his children if they missed him. It all made Ella sick, she wanted to be angry at them, the wife and kids of the man who killed her father, but she couldn't. In her heart, she just knew that they were hurting too and that they hadn't done anything wrong. Her mother did not want to hear this, she wanted them to be held accountable, someone should have to be held accountable she would yell, to no one at all.

Thirteen days had passed before there was any report about why this man, this father, husband, had decided to carry out this plan of mass murder. The answers came in the form of an external hard drive, discovered in a storage unit rented by the family. The man had recorded a video and then tucked it away to be found only after he had left this world, leaving heartbreak and destruction behind. The video showed a hollow man, spouting his hate and contempt for a world that he believed owed him more than he was given. A man convinced that everything bad or wrong in his life was someone else's fault, he'd been dealt a bad hand and he wasn't going to take it. He showed no remorse, no hesitancy as he spoke, in great detail, about his plans and preparations. He did not apologize for the hell he was going to put his wife and children through, he did not acknowledge them at all. It was obvious to all who watched that he cared about no one but himself, he saw the success of others and not only coveted it but would sacrifice himself to destroy them. Never again would anyone look down on him, he would no longer be made to feel inferior. This was his moment of glory and he was going to take out as many people as he could. Months spent attempting to build devices that would wreak the most havoc, acquiring knowledge of his weapon and his hunting ground, all leading up to the day when he would walk into that building and unleash hell on earth, what he called The Reckoning.

Ella recounted this story many times throughout her life, watching tragedy unfold before her young eyes. She remembers every detail of that day, the clothing she wore, the smell of cleaning solution used to scrub the kitchen floor, the moment she was told that her father would not be coming home. She didn't realize it then but that was the day she lost both of her parents to the same monster. Her father was physically taken, her mother was a different story entirely. Ella would swear that she actually saw the light leaving her mothers eyes, like someone had flipped a switch and her whole world had gone dark. Her mother had always been energetic, optimistic, she made the best of every situation but after that day, that woman was gone. She tried for a while, after the initial shock wore off, but it was just beyond her reach. As time went on, she sunk further into her grief, she could not see beyond her pain and went looking for a way to forget. And forget is exactly what she did, forgot to take care of her children, forgot to take care of herself, forgot everything she could until there was nothing left to forget. The children tried to hang on, they didn't want to lose their mother, but she was already gone. Eventually, when they couldn't hide it any longer, they called for help. When the police arrived, they shuddered at what they found. Three malnourished, dirty, cold children who had been abandoned by the only parent they had left. They couldn't recall the last time they had seen their mother or the last time they had food in the house. Their story could have gotten worse, they could have been separated, shoved into opposite corners of the foster care system never to return to each other but luckily, that wasn't how their story went.

Ella and her siblings were in foster care for a total of fifteen days before they were released into the care of their mother's sister. She lived on the opposite side of the country and was unaware of just how bad the situation had gotten. Apologizing over and over for not coming to check on them, for not calling more or demanding their mother let her talk to them to make sure they were ok. She would spend years trying to make it up to them, in any way she could. Money was not something they would have a lot of growing up, their aunt and uncle were not wealthy people. They were hard workers and they loved the kids with a fierce and unwavering devotion. Ella often wonders what life would have been like if the events of that horrible day had never happened or if her mother had somehow managed to pull herself out of the dark and love her children. Maybe there would have been another event that had led to a similar outcome or something even worse. There's no way to know, life is an inexplicable mystery that no one has yet to figure out. Tragedy has a ripple effect, there may have been 259 bodies laying lifeless that day but the total number of casualties is truly immeasurable. Unfortunately, all too often, history is made by extreme acts that are rooted in pure evil. Children are forced to witness the worst this world has to offer and somehow overcome all of that without being weighed down by the choices of those who came before. We are not responsible for the actions of our fathers but we are often held accountable for them regardless.