Our Opinion: Honor the memory of young lives lost

Today Carson City mourns the death of two of its youngest residents as 8-year-old Alexis and 3-year-old Colton Melendrez are laid to rest. The children and their father, David James Melendrez, were killed in a Mound House traffic accident on April 22.

Less than two weeks earlier, on April 9, a diving accident claimed Carson High School students Stephen Anderson, 16, and Keegan Aiazzi, 17. In both of these accidents, the investigations have provided little information about what actually happened.

There's no one in the Melendrez vehicle alive to say why it crossed the center line and into oncoming traffic. The investigation into the deaths of the Carson divers found that their equipment was working, but there's no one to say why they were found on the bottom of the bay with empty oxygen tanks.

People are wired to look for patterns or explanations where sometimes none are available. We are compelled to use our imaginations to fill in the blanks. Then instead of correctly attributing it to speculation, we start speaking with certainty, where there is none.

Learning to accept that there are things in this life that we mortals are incapable of knowing is part of our journey. What we can know is the love and sorrow we feel at the passing of so many of our children in so short a time.