The death of a silverback gorilla quickly led to a national referendum on a mother's parenting, a police investigation into her family and an angry mob sending her death threats on social media.

The mother, outed by social media vigilantes, nearly lost her 3-year-old child after a moment of distraction. Since then, she has become the target of those who say she should have been shot instead of the endangered ape.

The Cincinnati police said on Tuesday that they are investigating the family of the preschooler who slipped through a three-foot rail and fell into the moat of the gorilla enclosure at the Cincinnati Zoo on Saturday. Harambe, the lowland gorilla, approached the child, eventually dragging him through the water. Zoo officials say the child's head banged against the concrete, and they fatally shot the gorilla to save the child's life.

The human gut reaction after hearing this news should be grief and anger at the untimely and unnecessary loss of a majestic creature -- one held captive by humans. It was my instinctive response, as well. I tweeted on Sunday: "It takes considerable effort to scale a zoo's gorilla enclosure. Requires a lot of parental negligence for that to happen."

But I had rushed to this judgment before I had seen the actual barrier or knew much about the parent's behavior in that moment of the child's escape. I'd fallen into that easy trap of casting blame and judging a person in a flash of anger.

Later, I saw a photo of the barrier in question and realized that it wouldn't have taken much for a determined, impulsive preschooler to dash through the moat in the amount of time it would take a parent to turn around and attend to another child in her care.

This is when human higher-order thinking should kick in. It's rational after a tragedy to question if it could have been prevented. It makes sense to question whether a three-foot rail and four-foot hedge was enough of a barrier between humans and 450-pound beasts at a zoo, which has a responsibility to adequately protect both visitors and animals.

And it is that uniquely human ability to self-reflect that allows us to remember a moment when we may have been that parent who looked away for a second while a quick-footed child darted away. We've all likely seen children run across a parking lot dangerously, or through a store, while their parents appear distracted.

Even animals can exhibit empathy.

Those quick to criticize zoo officials and experts for killing the gorilla might pause to consider how they would want those officials to respond if it had been their child or grandchild or nephew who accidentally fell into that enclosure.

"But that would never be my child!" the rationalizing human brain responds. "A 'good' parent like me would never take her eyes and hands off a slippery 3-year-old at a zoo," it says, in that self-soothing, illusion-of-control way. The ability to judge the mistakes of another allows a person a sense of superiority, which can feel like a protective shield against freak accidents like this.

Taking refuge in a social media mob provides more than just an outlet for outrage; there's safety for the accusers in that mob. Together, its members share the sense that their superior judgment and actions would never allow such a tragedy to occur. And in an age where we are confronted daily with how little is in our control, social media offers an anxious subconscious a way to calm itself through blame: The more we blame this other person, the less likely it seems such horrible accidents could befall us.

A petition created on Change.org demands that the child's parents be "held accountable," and more than 350,000 people have signed it so far. A logical follow-up is to ask what accountability looks like in a situation like this. What sort of punishment fits the crime, if one has been committed, in such a case?

For those who blithely said "shoot the mother instead" -- even the gorilla, in its confused and startled state, showed more restraint.

Now, who is behaving like animals?

So much of the background noise in our lives reminds me of worst-case scenarios, chaos and decline.

It's the low-level hum: at work, on the television, in the paper and especially on the Internet. The world we are shown is largely one of conflict and controversy.

There is a chronic undercurrent of something bad happening; an impending sense of potential disaster. Things fall apart, people leave us when we need them to stay, and too many people suffer random tragedies and violence.

In this background gray, which sometimes darkens, sometimes lightens, we have to remind ourselves of the other force that turns this great big sphere on its axis.

In this moment, as you read this, so many things are happening outside the gray. In this very second, these moments are unfolding:

Parents whose hearts longed to have a baby are holding their newborn for the first time.

A man who aimed too far out of his league is gazing at his bride and promising to love her forever.

A daughter is telling her mother she's going to become a grandmother.

A father is hugging his grown son and saying that he's proud of him.

A cancer patient is hearing a doctor say the word "remission."

A teenager has the keys to the car for the very first time.

The ground is shaking for someone getting kissed.

A baby, a spinal-cord injury patient and an amputee are all taking their first steps.

A brand-new business owner is making her first sale.

Someone, who no one believed ever would, is crossing a stage and accepting a diploma.

Someone is sounding out a word and beginning to read.

A writer is finishing a book.

An artist is being struck by inspiration.

A runner is crossing a finish line.

Someone is falling in love.

A stranger is saving another human being's life.

A boss is offering a nervous young adult his first job.

An unemployed breadwinner with a family to support is accepting a new job offer.

A soldier is greeting her family after a long absence, picking up a child and holding her so tightly.

An unlikely 10-year-old is scoring a game-winning goal.

An abandoned puppy is being chosen by a new family.

Someone is being surprised with a cake and a birthday song.

Someone is proposing. Someone is saying yes.

People are dancing -- in streets, at parties, in clubs and in their bedrooms.

A child is showing his parents his best-ever report card.

All of that is happening. Somewhere in this big, wide world, in the time it took to read that. All that elusive, random, commonplace, extraordinary happiness is taking place -- changing people's lives or just filling them with gratitude.

I want to pause and consider each of those scenes unfolding. I want to let myself remember those moments from my own life and appreciate what so many millions of people the world over are experiencing.

We carry memories of our best times close to our hearts, but how often do we take a minute to pull out those pictures from our mind and allow ourselves the gift of reliving them? Of remembering the sights, sounds and smells as vividly as we can?

It doesn't cost anything. And science has shown us that dwelling in the good -- past or present -- makes us happier. The act of recalling, the process of committing to memory these moments, serves us well when the world seems dark.

It's a reminder today, of all days.

Sometimes, love wins.

I cared about my grades as a student.

My parents did too, although not oppressively so. I learned early on the positive attention that came along with A's. Once they knew I had internalized their expectations as my own, they focused on all the other things they had to worry about while raising six children.

My parents assumed I would try my best in school, because, why wouldn't I?

They relied on twice-a-year report cards and occasional progress reports to reaffirm this belief.

My relationship with grades became more complicated when it was my children being assessed. After elementary school, not a single paper report card comes home.

Like students across the country, all of their grades are accessible through an online portal. The portal for our district is called Infinite Campus. Even the name sounds ominous. So vast, those grades -- creeping into every corner of time, space and existence.

Teachers are expected to post every homework assignment, quiz and test result. Some schools send notifications with each update. Some parents download the portal app on their smartphones and check the updates hourly. I never became that involved, but during the first year of this transition to online grades, I paid close attention to my daughter's marks. If I saw a score that seemed lower than usual, I would urge my child to take the retest. If an assignment appeared to be missing or incomplete, I'd suggest she talk to her teacher or turn it in for partial credit. I would remind her and follow up frequently.

It took me a year to realize that so much information can quickly go from blessing to burden. I wanted her to do her best, but not because I had a hawkeyed focus on her scores.

I can be a slightly obsessive, competitive workaholic, and worry about my children being too similar and feeling so much pressure. But then I also worry about them not being motivated and competitive enough. I recognized this impulse and wanted to check it before I made all of us miserable. Up-to-the-minute, 24/7 access to their grades isn't the best thing for my mental health, or my relationship with my children.

I also didn't want to become a crutch for her academic achievement. If there is a missing assignment, let her figure out how to make it up.

Easy access to every grade can flip a free-range parent into a hovering helicopter. One parent posted a question on the Free Range Kids website which asked: Are hourly report cards a good idea?

Parents have to figure out where their child thrives and struggles, and decide how to help them grow in the areas they need extra support. Some kids need additional academic help. Others need to grow emotionally or to learn independence.

I decided that by taking responsibility for my child's work, I was robbing her of the opportunity to do so on her own.

This year, I never logged into the online portal. I asked regularly about what she was learning in her classes, which books she was reading and how the tests were going. If she was struggling with a subject, we helped her or found a tutor who could. I talked to her about her presentations, group projects and class discussions. I responded promptly to any teacher email and attended all the conferences. I volunteered for field trips but stepped aside from school projects.

As an Asian-American mother, I may be parenting against type by opting out of hypervigilant grades monitoring. For children of immigrants, there can be a culture of high academic expectations. I don't have the will (or energy, frankly) to be a Tiger Mom, but I lean in that general direction.

Even with this hands-off approach, I knew I had a safety net.

My husband kept tabs on her progress through the website. He is much more laid-back about all aspects of parenting, so perhaps it makes more sense for him to keep an eye on the online grade book.

I asked her if she noticed that I hadn't checked in on her specific grades this year.

"Not really, because Dad was stalking my grades, like, every week," she said. (He looks at her grades every few weeks.) It's kind of like role reversal, she added, that her father would ask about assignments.

I explained to her the difference between internal and external motivation.

"I want you to learn to do well for your own satisfaction -- not to please your parents or teachers."

"I do everything for myself, anyway," she said.

Were truer teenage words ever spoken?

I asked her how she ended up doing this year. Just as good or slightly better than last year, she said.

Bonus: I had nothing to do with it.