I think about my life in two parts now – before the tragedy and after.

I was running just a little late from work to pick up my 3-year-old son from his regular babysitter’s home outside St. Louis one June day in 1998. It was during those fateful minutes that the babysitter’s own 11-year-old child found a gun in a closet. My son Markie entered the room, startling the boy with the gun. The gun went off. He never meant to shoot Markie.

About six months before the tragedy, I can so vividly remember hearing a story on the evening news about a local mother who lost her son to an accidental shooting. Little did I know that one day the tragic news story would be about my son Markie, and that there may have been something I could have been doing all along to prevent it.

Sonya Barge