The Pain of a Parent: How the Robinsons' Courage Led to Their Son's Capture
Despite every instinct to protect him, to shield him from the Hell he'd unleashed, Matt and Amber sacrificed in absolute selflessness...
[WashingtonStand.com] There are only two families on earth who understand the truly nightmarish pain of September 10. While Charlie Kirk's wife, children, and parents bear an unspeakable grief, made all the more gut-wrenching by the violent and public way he died, there's a couple in Utah living with another kind of anguish—the unimaginable suffering that comes when your son is responsible. (Image: iStock-Oksana Aksenova)
No one raises a child thinking they'll be a killer. Like the rest of the world, Matt and Amber Robinson were probably horrified at the news of Charlie's assassination. They must have reeled from the footage with the same revulsion and disbelief as tens of millions of Americans who were stunned at the savage way his bright light was snuffed out. And like any mom and dad of three good sons, it would have never crossed their minds that this massive manhunt would lead straight to their door.
Those were the blissful hours when the Robinsons didn't know life was about to change; when they didn't realize that the family they'd built was about to come crashing down. These were the moments before reporters were on their lawns, before their happy Facebook photos became headline news, before sirens showed up to take the first child they'd held in their arms away.
Parents across human history have had to walk the excruciating path of losing children, but very few have lost them this way. It's a small club of moms and dads who know the shame and despair that a tragedy of this magnitude costs you. When it's your own flesh and blood that the world reviles, when the little boy you taught to ride a bike and whose straight A's you celebrated is the villain in a horror movie you never dreamed would be written, the questions screaming through a parent's head must be a unique kind of torture. Where did we go wrong? What did we miss? Why us?
Who can imagine, in that first grainy image of the shooter, the paralyzing fear of recognizing his face—of knowing 22 years of its contours and expressions. Or turning to your wife with a look of unfathomable loss, realizing there was no going back to what was. But even then, at their darkest, most soul-crushing moment, they did the hardest thing a parent could do: they turned their son in.
Despite every instinct to protect him, to shield him from the hell he'd unleashed, Matt and Amber sacrificed in absolute selflessness. "Life is never going to be the same for them," Susan Constantine, a human behavior expert, acknowledged somberly. "The fact that they stood up, did what was right, even as difficult as it was—their own son, their own blood, to think that their own blood was capable of carrying out such a heinous act. It has got to be a weight that none of us could ever imagine on our shoulders."
When things are bleakest, we all turn to something. The Robinsons turned to faith, to a spiritual leader who could help them make the hardest call of their life. And in that moment, in the storm they never saw coming, they were heroes.
It wasn't something they had time to deliberate. They would have had to act quickly, Susan insisted. That, more than anything, revealed a kind of deep moral compass and courage that some people simply don't have in times of crisis. "It's almost unheard of," she wanted people to know, "but they did what was right ... even though it was a son, [who] was unsafe, to make the citizens in that community safer." And they did it, she stressed, knowing they would be held responsible for his actions too.
And the most distressing part, she reiterated, is that they may not deserve any of this. "As a mother, I've seen it firsthand," Constantine admitted. "My own daughter was recruited into a radical ideology. These kids don't always come from broken homes," she admitted. "They come from great families, and once they get their hooks into wherever they got it from, generally more from the social media, the social contagion, they can be radicalized very quickly." She paused, almost in disbelief. "It's so mind-numbing that we're here and that we have so many youth that are so confused and bitter and hateful and rising up, because we see a lot of this in this younger generation," she said. "We've got to figure out what's going wrong. We've got to fix it."
For now, we sit in a place of brokenness, desperate for God to make sense of the long arc of tragedies we seem to keep experiencing as a nation. And for some parents, the Hales and Robinsons and Westmans, the agony runs deeper. With the whole world digging through the details of their lives—speculating where they went wrong and tearing down the privacy fences around their hurting families—the reality is that no one is probably harder on their choices than they are.
Like every parent destroyed by a son or daughter who fell away—or turned away—from the truth they were taught, these wounds are difficult to heal. They require the tender touch of a God Who understands having children who disappoint. A God Who knows what it is to tenderly care forHispeople, only to be betrayed again and again and again. A God Who feels the sorrow of hard hearts. "I reared children and brought them up, but they have rebelled against me" (Isaiah 1:2).
To Mark and Amber and every parent walking this lonely and gut-wrenching road, God is there. He isn't done with Tyler, just as He isn't done with any of us. "[B]eing confident of this, thatHe who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6). As long as there's breath, there's hope. In the Lord's hand is man's heart (Proverbs 21:1), no matter how evil or lost. No matter how undone by sin.
Of course, in the fog of cameras and accusations and distress that their son was also living a secret life, it's easy to believe that this is their fault. That Charlie died a martyr and Tyler is a monster because of what they did or didn't do. But the whole book of Proverbs is actually "about a son being told by his father, 'I'm laying out for you two paths in life. You can choose wisdom, or you can choose folly. You can choose the harlot, or you can choose the soul's true bride,'" Dr. Jim Newheiser writes. "The father is pleading with the son to ... reject all the manifestations of foolishness and to commit himself to dine at the table of Lady Wisdom. But the whole point of Proverbs is that the son is making his own choice as he comes into adulthood."
No one can bring back Charlie. And the world will continue to rage and grieve in equal parts that he died such a brutal, unnecessary death. But his widow, young children, parents, sister, and everyone who was close to him are surrounded by an unbroken chain of prayers ringing out from every nation. There will be presidential tributes and posthumous honors, a bigger ministry and a bigger legacy. A grateful movement will circle the Kirk family with generosity, ferocity, and tenderness—as they should.
There won't be vigils for Matt and Amber in every time zone—or a carousel of celebrity condolences for brothers Austin and Logan. But there are signs that the tight-knit community of Washington, Utah, cares. "This family is an amazing family," one neighbor told Fox when they saw her leaving flowers on the Robinsons' front steps. "It's unfortunate what happened, but the family needs our support," she insisted.
At a Sunday's gathering to pray for the country, a woman named Diana laid out large baskets on a table with multicolored pens and paper. Tacked to the top of one was a sign that read "Prayers for the Kirk Family," and another right next to it, "Prayers for the Robinson Family." As shocking as it's been for their small town, most people can't believe that Matt and Amber had the strength to make the "unbelievable decision" to bring their son to justice. "I'm very grateful they did that, and I have the utmost sympathy for his family," Melissa Tate reflected. "I can't even imagine what they're going through right now."
What they're going through is the ultimate reminder of our humanness, our fallenness, our desperate need for the love and mercy of a Savior. And no matter what they or we are tempted to believe, there is no perfect home, no perfect parent, no insulation from the darkness and destruction satan is so desperate to inflict. And so we pray. Not just for the Kirks, whose trauma and anguish are inconceivable, but for the Robinsons—who also know the heartbreak of a son never coming home, but only because he chose it.
May God, in His infinite compassion, draw near to them both. Subscribe for free to Breaking Christian News here
Suzanne Bowdey serves as editorial director and senior writer at The Washington Stand.
