For Where Your Treasure Is...

TOWSON, Md. - They seemed like an ideal Long Island family: William Parente was a lawyer, his wife Betty a stay-at-home mom active in the community. Their daughters were well-liked by teachers and classmates. They lived in a neighborhoodof million-dollar homes in Garden City, N.Y., next to a golf course. William, 59, was a tax and estate planning attorney who commuted to his Manhattan office. Betty, 58, volunteered. They were in Maryland to visit older daughter Stephanie, 19, a sophomore at Loyola College in Baltimore. With them was her sister, Catherine, 11, a sixth-grader at Garden City Middle School.

On Monday, after they failed to check out of their room on time, a housekeeper found their bodies. Baltimore County police said they were investigating the deaths as a murder-suicide. “In the last few months, she said, "there's a clear rash" of such killings,” stated Kristen Rand, legislative director for the center, a nonprofit gun control advocacy group. Richard Gelles, dean of the School of Social Policy and Practice at the University of Pennsylvania claims, “They can be tied to the nation's
economic woes.”

[Excerpt from Associated Press April 21, 2009]

I was ashamed not to be more shocked and horrified when I was first made aware of the incident. I then realized that it was because I identify with this man. If my god decided to leave me, I would probably end it all too, and since I wouldn’t want to hurt my family, I’d have to take them with me. I am still not shocked, but I have grown more horrified: not at William Parente, but at human nature (specifically my own). I can only thank my God for His grace that sustains me and His Holy Presence which will never leave or forsake me. Lord, have mercy on us all.