I don't have sons. I have two daughters. I've never had to say "no" to violent movies and video games. I've never had to explain that hands are not for hitting. Neither of my two girls ever picked up a stick and pretended it was a gun.

The danger of opting for the storyline over a more complex and present truth is this: When we make up stories, we create an alternate reality. Rather than looking at our situation straight in the eye, we look at it from behind a protective lens.

Aurora, Tuscon, Newtown, and now Boston. In light of so many terrorizing incidences, from a psychological standpoint, it's normal -- and healthy -- to feel fear.

So give us a brief time to cry, to grieve. Something really bad happened. Let us work through our emotions. Then after that, spit in the eye of fate and the madmen, be proud of our cities and our nationality, and gain revenge in normality.

We are all innocent bystanders to tragedy now. Americans live in era of terrible violence, which finds us in our movie theaters and our schools and our streets full of joyful citizens. Those who do such terrible deeds seem to have forgotten what it means to be human. But we don't have to.

We cannot let yesterday's attack, an assault on the essence of the human spirit, create within us fragmentation and destruction. We must continue to achieve. We must continue to come together.

How do we wake to a new day and move forward? What do we say to ourselves, to each other, to our children? Sadly, no explanation can make sense of this mindless devastation. Nonetheless, there are some things we can do to take care of ourselves and to take care of each other.

This shocking event has captured the attention of most of the world, and there is some small solace in knowing that millions of hearts are sharing in concern and compassion for the victims and their families.

That bumper sticker kept going over and over in my mind: "The best things in life aren't things." And yet, as true as I knew it to be, I still couldn't help but feel somewhat sick to my stomach that most of my things were now in a pile of ash.

Moving on after tragedy, not letting it be our guide but taking its wisdom into our next experience of love, is the practice of routine gratitude.