I get angry sometimes.
No, that makes it sound too orderly.
I get really ticked off sometimes, the clenched fists, stomping feet, yelling at the sky kind of ticked off.
I’m not proud of that, but it is what it is.
I’ve also gotten drunk before, the kind of drunk where you jump into the swimming pool in your new three-piece suit, the kind of drunk where you speak in a foreign language you didn’t know you knew.
I’m not all that proud of that either, but it, too, is what it is. Or was what it was.
But no matter how red in the face I could on rare occasion become, from either alcohol or anger or both, I’ve never gotten to the point where I would pick up a child to swing at another person.
There is, thankfully, some gate in my brain, a line in the sand where sanity intervenes to prevent disaster.
In fact, I can’t even imagine a scene so berserk that it could take place.
That may be why those blessed with that safety valve are having such a hard time understanding Chytoria Graham, the 27-year old mother of five charged with picking up her month old baby Jarron and swinging him at her boyfriend during a late night, alcohol-fueled fight.
The force of the blow cracked the infant’s still-forming skull, causing swelling and more yet-to-be-determined damage.
As of this writing Jarron is in Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh in serious but stable condition.
Those grasping at explanations have looked to causes from post-partum depression to the tried-and-true “she just snapped.”
But others wonder if there isn’t something in the species that prevents most mothers from blindly injuring their children, regardless of circumstance.
Tragically, those of us who read the headlines know better.
The courts will examine the life of Chytoria Graham, inevitably remove her children from her care, and decide how much of her life she must spend isolated from the rest of society.
Doctors fear that Jarron Troop will deal with developmental issues and seizures for the rest of his life.
The rest of us are left to ponder our own foibles, and wonder at the reliability of the fail safe in our own brains that keeps us from crossing that line.