I hope you don't find this too disturbing but

I think I know why Dr. Edward Van Dyk, 43,
threw his two sons, ages 4 and 8,
and then himself,
over a 15 story balcony.

In fact, I think I know why some parents
may be killing their children,
and my idea does seen to be talked about
in the open at all.

For example, in the Yahoo! newstory,
Miami Beach Police spokesman Bobby Hernandez
surmises:

"It's unfortunate that this gentleman was so selfish
and in an effort to get back at his wife
he took the two most loved people
in the world away from her."

Yet, the wife reports that although the couple
had been having marital problems,
they had not argued previous to this incident,
and that, in fact, they were celebrating their 10th anniversary.

Further, this doctor had just received a huge promotion
(he had just become head of a cancer hospital 18 months ago);
his colleagues describe his as quite, intelligent, and friendly.
I believe that it is important to look
at his career, to see he excelled
in a field where he also worked with the most severe cases--
with people who die every day.

Given this information,
I believe that Dr. Van Dyk could have been an extremely
sensitive (depressed) man who was, to his own way of thinking,
actually being considerate of his children . . .
of their futures . . .

perhaps, he could not imagine the suffering
his sons would go through in their lives
while trying to understand why their father
had committed suicide,

or perhaps he identified too closely
with the young boys, imagining a similiar future
of pain for them
and wanted to spare them the misery of life . . .


I believe these parents, who may be convinced that
death is the best option for their children
(think about it--
they believe death is the best for themselves),
simply lack the capacity at these moments
to rationalize the importance of choice
and have no concept of a future--even for their young children.

What I can't comprehend
are those utter final moments . . .