The shooting death of Mark Rebong of Newtown as he drove along an exit ramp from I-84 in Danbury on Tuesday was shocking and traumatic to his friends and family and deeply unsettling to the rest of us. How does it happen that someone so young, talented, and intelligent can be driving to work one minute and be dying with a gunshot wound to the head the next? He was not involved in risky behavior. He was not associating with dangerous people. He was just going about his business, just like the rest of us. His tragic end reminds us how seemingly random violence spares no one. When anger lurks at the end of a weapon, everyone close by is at risk.

The puzzle of Mark Rebong’s murder promises to be a tough one for the police to solve. Unless there were witnesses, it may be quite possible that the killer will escape arrest and prosecution. The Rebong family and the community at large may never get that meager measure of compensation we call justice for a vital life taken in anger. So what is left for us to do?

As always, the antidote for wrongful death is compassion for life. Unfortunately, we cannot enforce such compassion in others, especially when they are bitter, confused, and deranged. But we can foster it in ourselves. An easy place to start is with people who have suffered a grievous loss – the Rebong family comes first to mind. Then we can expand that circle of compassion to include those we love in our own lives –family and friends. Perhaps we can enlarge it still further to include all the people we meet in our daily lives who we don’t know, who are just like ourselves, in need of attention and care. And then comes the big challenge: to replace our own anger with compassion for those people we do not like. It is only the rare person who can do this, and we must admit that we have yet to master this for ourselves.  But think how much safer we would feel if more such people were close by.