Aubree was devastated to learn of the murder/suicide involving professional wrestler Chris Benoit. He was one of her favorites, someone she cheered for, a face on a t-shirt she wanted to buy. She at first refused to believe it, then read through the story and tried to come up with some explanation. There had to be one. She had watched this wrestler on television many times. “He wasn’t like that. How could he do something like this?”, she sobbed. I told her that we often don’t know people as well as we think we do, that we don’t always understand the demons that lurk inside of man. We’ll never know what was going through this man’s head. How on earth does a man strangle his own wife and suffocate his seven year old son? What does he find inside himself that enables him to commit such a horrific act?

Everyone has their demons, even professional entertainers who make lots of money and constantly appear in the public eye. Early press reports are referencing possible steroid abuse, but it is impossible for me to imagine that any kind of drug could compel someone to murder their own family. We don’t know and we don’t understand, and this makes it all the more difficult. If I don’t understand, how can I possibly explain it to a twelve year old girl? Everyone has a dark side and everyone has their own struggles, temptations, and their own personal demons. History is full of examples of someone that no one believed would harm a fly turning into cold blooded killers.

We never really know people like we think we do, even those we consider close to us. We sure don’t know celebrities who put on a face for us to see. I'm sorry that my daughter is having to learn that in this difficult way.