"The Walking Dead"... The Humanized Version. And The "Mother" of All Questions.

WARNING!!! The video below contains graphic scenes, primarily of violence and may be disturbing to some viewers. Discretion is advised!



Last night, I had my husband watch this very scene from the show. It was then, as I once again was crying that he had asked me a very point-blank question. One that hit to the very core of me.

"If it were one of our kids, could you pull the trigger?"...

WOW! Powerful, isn't it? He wasn't asking me if I had thought that HE could put a bullet through our zombie-child's brain, or let alone someone other than us as their parents to do so.

I was asked if I myself, as their MOTHER, could bring myself to end my child's suffering by pointing the barrel of a gun at my their head and fire the shot to (finally) kill my son or my daughter.

In all honesty, I do NOT think that I could bring myself to shoot any one of my kids. Zombie-fied, or not. Even though it is for the greater good. For my child that is suffering the effects of being one of the un-dead, and to ease my own conscience as to start MY grieving process of losing my child to some crazy viral mutation.

As mothers, at least the majority of us anyways, because we all know that in today's society, some mothers should have NEVER had kids, as you can tell from news articles and TV spots, we can never imagine hurting our children. Especially in that manner.

We carried them for around nine months within the confines of our body. They were (literally) attached to us from day one of conception. We love them like no one else honestly can. We do our very best to protect them and to be vigilant in fulfilling their needs.

So, to see Sophia walk out of that barn's doorway as a zombie, it actually did break my heart. That horrid lump in my throat came bubbling up and my heart sank deep within my chest. To see Carol run after her daughter, Sophia as she came out of the barn was just sickening to my heart, knowing that there is NOTHING to do for her, but to end her suffering via a bullet to the brain.

As for Rick, as a parent/father himself, to BE the one to step forward, gun in hand, as his son, Carl, who was close friends with Sophia watched in unimaginable horror as Lori (Carl's mother) told her son to not watch, was taking on that leadership roll in a bold, new, albeit a gut-wrenching way.

If you watched closely as Rick aims the gun at Sophia, tears are stinging his eyes, as he tried hard to hold back. Hearing Carol's screams and cries I'm sure didn't help him with knowing that what he was about to do, HAD to be done. His jaw clinches and flinched just slightly as he pulls back on the trigger.

In one deep breath, it is over. Sophia is officially gone.

For all of those involved, it was a nightmare come true. Especially for the parents of the group. Primarily for Carol. To see the agony in her eyes, and hear it in her voice and in her cries about killed me.

And that question that my husband asked me in regards to being able to pull the trigger on my own child? It stuck with me and ate at me most of the night.

As for how the Makeup Artists made Sophia in to a zombie, I COMMEND THEM! They had done an explicitly excellent job of putting her humanity first, and the monstrous side to her, as a secondary attribute. She was the epitome and the if you will, spokes-zombie of the Walking Dead community. We got to see, thanks to Sophia (again, thanks to the Makeup crews!) as the little girl that (some of us) had grown to know and like (if not love), even though she was no longer completely human.

So to see her story end in this way, which indeed was utterly shocking, it left me, as a mom, heartbroken, but glad all at once. A mother lost a child. But in the end, there was and will be closure for Carol. And for the others.

Or will there be?