““I've seen some very bad things this year, most of them when I was distracted. The world comes at me when I'm drinking coffee or sitting on a bus. By the time you're old enough to read this letter, the technology may be different, but right now I scroll through the news on a little handset, and so these things appear as slivers of horror in between the daily business of my life - a man burned by a phosphorus bomb as I walk to teach a class at the university, a dazed little boy about your age, pulled from the rubble of his home as I wait in line at the supermarket. Often, I don't even register them, or don't allow myself to think too hard, but sometimes they sink in further than I want them to, and I spend the rest of the day haunted by some image, some event that I didn't prepare myself to witness, another terrible truth about the world that appeared unbidden and made our family's safety and happiness feel even more precarious than before. A distraught father holds up his baby, pleading for rescue from a sinking rubber boat. Why him and not me? What would I do if we were in that situation? How would I save everyone? There are other things, horrible things that I want to protect you from for as long as possible, things that I would keep from you forever, if I could.””
