To the Father of Little Lane

I will be thinking this Father’s Day of the father that valiantly tried to get his little boy out of the thousand pound forceful jaws of an alligator. I want to lift a huge burden off of his shoulders as I know these parents are in great emotional and physical pain.

I am hoping this helps some....Is it a goal to put your child in a car seat to be safe? No. You can make it a goal to put them in the car seat. But it is only a desire that they be safe. Yes, you can certainly do your research and make the wisest purchase. You can install the car seat properly and make sure the child is strapped as per instruction, but you still have to let go when you pull out of your driveway! You cannot possibly conceive what may take place on the road.

We need to take a collective sigh as parents as we come to terms that we simply do not have control over everything. Of course we desire that our children be safe and we can make it a goal to do what we believe is the right thing at the time. But there is so much out of our control. I.e. alligators! A mother with her little boy on the same little beach just an hour before Lane was seized said this, “I can assure you alligators were not on my mind at all when Channing was in the water. It’s a tiny beach, surrounded by pools, water slides, a restaurant and a fire pit. I can’t conceive that an alligator would be in such a busy, small space.”

Sadly, little Lane was found, intact, drowned in the murky water just yards from where he was snatched at the Disney Resort. We are raising our children in a “murky” time in our society. The bottom is no longer visible as we navigate our children to young adults. But there can be peace in letting go of what we do not own.