There are moments in a news story when I have to stop reading because my mind has gone somewhere my heart can’t bear to follow.

For me, it is the thought of a parent standing beside a soccer field, seeing a truck coming and realizing it is not stopping.

The distance between where you are and where your child is.

The desperate need to get there.

The fear of knowing, in that split second, that you can’t.

On Saturday, a truck drove through a youth soccer game at Wichita’s Stryker Sports Complex. A 6-year-old boy and a 35-year-old man were killed, and 11 other people were taken to hospitals. Authorities are still investigating how and why it happened.

I wasn’t there, so I can’t tell you what parents saw, thought or did. Those experiences belong to the people who lived them, and they deserve the right to share them in their own time, if they ever choose to.

But as a mother and grandmother, I’ve spent countless hours on the sideline and I can’t stop thinking about the instinct to protect a child and the terror of finding that love alone can’t put you within reach.

We spend so much of our lives trying to keep our children safe. We buckle car seats, hold hands in parking lots and remind them to look both ways. We check on them while they sleep. We watch from bleachers and sidelines, our eyes finding them almost automatically.

We know which jersey is theirs. We recognize the way they run. And we’re there every time they look to the stands for support, love and confirmation.

As an overly-cautious person, I look for danger everywhere. I expect the worst. But somewhere inside me is the hope that, if danger comes, I will see it soon enough. I will get there. I will know what to do.

That is what makes this tragedy so difficult to take in.

What happens when there is no warning you could reasonably have anticipated? When you can see your child, but cannot reach them quickly enough? When every part of you is willing to stand between them and danger, but your body cannot move as fast as your fear?

I keep thinking, too, about families with more than one child.

I do not know which families there Saturday had a child playing and another beside them. But anyone who has taken children to a game can picture that familiar arrangement: one on the field, another waiting on the sidelines, watching their sibling, probably playing within eyesight of the parents, but not right by them.

Not close enough.

Imagining danger in that setting means imagining your attention pulled in two directions, needing to gather everyone into your arms at once.

No parent should ever have to face that.

And no parent who could not reach someone should have to carry the belief that they failed. Being unable to stop a catastrophe does not mean you loved too little, watched too casually or tried too late.

I hope those who need to hear that will hear it often, from people willing to stay beside them.

A youth soccer game is such an ordinary part of family life. There are water bottles, folding chairs and reminders about shin guards. Someone is looking forward to lunch afterward. Someone is hoping their child gets a chance to score.

The expectation is simple: We will watch the game, gather our belongings and go home.

That ordinary expectation is part of what hurts. Families went to a place where children were supposed to play, and people were killed.

For the families grieving those deaths, there are no words I can arrange into something adequate. I won’t pretend otherwise. Their loved ones were whole people, loved in ways no news account can contain.

For the injured and their families, I pray for healing, patient care and strength through whatever recovery requires.

For the children who witnessed what happened, I pray there are trusted adults ready to listen, answer gently and sit with questions that may come more than once.

For the parents, grandparents, coaches, spectators and emergency workers, I pray for support that continues after the headlines move on.

And I hope our concern becomes something useful: a meal, help with a fundraiser verified by the family, an offer to handle an errand, or simply a willingness to listen without asking someone to relive the worst moments for our understanding.

We can also give these families privacy. We can resist speculation. We can remember that their suffering is not ours to turn into an argument or a spectacle.

Today, my thoughts and prayers are with everyone whose life changed at those fields.

I am praying for the families who cannot bring someone home, for those waiting beside hospital beds and for those holding their children close while struggling to understand what they witnessed.

I wish I could offer something that would make this bearable.

What I can offer is my sorrow, my prayers and this hope: that every person affected will be surrounded by people who keep showing up, long after this terrible Saturday has passed.

Yvonda Freeman is a reporter with the Great Bend Tribune. Send emails to: yfreeman@gbtribune.com.