I spent countless weekends there throughout my childhood, playing in and around my grandmother's country store just outside of "Caz" in the cluster of buildings known as Germantown.

Every Christmas was a huge family gathering at Grandma's house, followed by midnight Mass at Saint Anthony's Catholic Church next door.

My favorite thing to do in Cazenovia was to climb the old military tank that's been parked in the community park for longer than I've been alive. And I devoured plenty of "Pug burgers" while playing euchre with assorted kin at what used to be Pug's Pub. I've been to dozens of festivals, weddings and reunions in and around the friendly, peaceful village.

So it's sad and shocking to see what is such an idyllic place to me suffer such a tragedy as Friday's deadly school shooting.

My father, Terry Milfred, is the semi-retired Weston superintendent who described on national television Friday the school's grief and love for principal John Klang, who died from gunshot wounds a few hours later. By all accounts, Klang was a dedicated, sincere and admired educator in a community that loved its school as a source of pride and hope for the future.

As my father spoke in a voice shaken with emotion at Friday morning's press conference, I choked back tears watching it on TV here in Madison. A lot of people did.

A 15-year-old student is accused of shooting Klang three times Friday morning. I feel so lucky that my father, who works part time for the school, wasn't there to become part of the violence.

No one could possibly love Caz more than my father. And yet certainly there are many, including Klang, who love the rural farming town just as much.

I have read all of the news accounts of the shooting and the many comments by village residents and students as well as the outpouring of reactions that State Journal readers posted on our Web site.

Yet I find it hard to come up with anything definitive to do or say -- some way to sort out or make peace with what has happened. I'm numb.

I don't even live in Cazenovia. I haven't been there since a couple of years ago when I visited the high school to talk to students about journalism.

I know I cannot fully understand Cazenovia's heartbreak. And I know I may not be able to write anything to move us closer to a safer society for our kids.

Long before Friday's shooting, my grandmother was killed by a robber at her one-pump gas station and grocery store just outside Cazenovia. I remember walking out of St. Anthony's in Germantown with the funeral procession. We crossed the road to bury Leone in the cemetery where we sometimes played as kids.

My Uncle Mike noticed me, then 13, walking by myself and crying. He wrapped his big arm around me as we walked ever so slowly down the church steps to Grandma's final resting place.

"You're a good boy," my Uncle Mike told me in his deep and warm voice, pulling his arm even snugger around my ribcage. He was so solid and reassuring. He didn't cry, at least not in front of me.

When tragedy strikes, I'm often reminded of the hope in his voice and the strength of his embrace. We keep going. We strive to make the world a better place no matter the evil that lurks.

My heart is with Cazenovia, with John Klang's family and also with the family of Erik Fichtel, the Weston student who died in an unrelated car crash the same morning of the shooting.

And within the outrage I have for the student charged with murder, I find it hard not to look at his photograph and see the troubled child in his face.

I hope for a future that's safer for my children when they joyfully walk to their first days of school here in Madison.

Let's honor Klang's memory by re-committing ourselves to making sure our children and any others we can reach are loved and steered toward goodness.