Thursday, I sat in the Atlanta Municipal Court room where Brian Nichols, the Fulton County Courthouse shooter, is being sentenced for the murders of four people. The jury must decide whether to sentence Nichols to death by lethal injection. They listened to statements read out loud by 13 victims.
I listened to them talk about the void in their lives after the murder of their loved one. Of missed birthdays and anniversaries, graduations and weddings or just the ordinary. A quiet dinner at home. Watching a movie. Snuggling together. The comfort of love and understanding.
All of it was robbed on a blustery March day in 2005 when Nichols escaped from custody during his rape trial and went on his killing spree.
The statements once again reminded me of the loss that families of soldiers feel. Sudden, violent loss. It’s not something most of us experience in our lifetimes. So we take things — and people — for granted.
We shouldn’t.
Life has more meaning when we live every day to its fullest and take the time to appreciate the people who make our lives richer. Brian Nichols victims have realized that in the most painful of ways.

So, I didn’t write for many months after I created this blog. I went off to Iraq and when I returned, I could not navigate through some technical difficulties, and I abandoned this.
But I just returned from an invigorating week in Chicago — yes, the windy city is still celebrating the historical electoral victory of one of its own, but that’s not what I mean.
I just attended a week-long fellowship sponsored by the Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma. I sat with eight other journalists chosen as 2008 Ochberg fellows and learned that I was hardly alone. I had felt somewhat isolated from society after my returns from Iraq and I discovered that THAT was perfectly normal.
We heard from specialists in the field working with depression, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and other problems that plague victims of violence.
Not many Americans realize how traumatic events can affect the journalists who cover them. Everyone is always getting down on the media, but how else would everyone get news if the media decided to skip the awful fires, shootouts, murders, terrorist attacks and wars?
Think about it.
Would you be willing, if you had a choice, to leave the comforts of your home to throw yourself in harm’s way? Very few of us do that for a living. Firefighters, paramedics, police officers and members of the military are a special breed. I think journalists are too.

In the past few days, I have spoken with fathers and the mothers destroyed by this war.