The other night I was watching CSI Miami, supposedly the world’s most popular TV show, with my family…and one of the characters, a plastic surgeon, died after being pushed into a wood chipper (pretty gross).

Although watching a crime drama like that about forensic investigators collecting and analyzing evidence and solving traumatic and unusual deaths is fascinating, I find it much more disturbing to watch shows about real mysterious deaths (shows like Dateline, 48 Hours, Medical Mysteries, Dr. G. Medical Examiner…).

Don’t get me wrong…I enjoy watching them all…but just knowing something is a real situation tugs at my emotions and makes me wonder how a family must be coping, or what the tragedy has done to relationships…

And did you see the recent TV movie about the now deceased Irena Sendler, the courageous social worker working for the Polish underground during World War II, who helped 2500 Jewish children escape the Warsaw ghettos by smuggling them out in boxes and suitcases…? I couldn’t help myself…I wept as I watched…and I only caught the last hour! Irena helped place those children with Polish families, gave them new identities…and in 1943 she was arrested and tortured by the Gestapo…but escaped execution. Years later when she was honored, she denied she was a hero and said, “I have pangs of conscience that I did so little!”

Whew…the world could use a lot more people like Irena Sendler!

Melanie Hack
Author of Who Killed My Sister, My friend
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