Last Friday was a normal day. I was meeting my husband and my son, who had just come home from college, at a new coffee shop to have some lunch. I was almost there when the guy on the radio announced that there had been a "school shooting" in Connecticut and few details were out but that reports said that three people had been hurt and were at the hospital. It caught my attention because anytime there is a news report concerning a school I stop to listen. I spent five years as a high school and middle school teacher so my ears are always alert to "school news." After we finished lunch I got back in my car just in time to hear the updated news. This time the report was 27 dead, 18 children. I wanted to push a "rewind" on the radio and make sure I had heard what I thought I heard. I drove down the road with my mouth open and saying all I knew to say out loud, "Oh God." As I continued to listen to the report I started to cry, I texted my husband (yes, I did pull over), and then I prayed. It's really all I know to do when such sad and shocking things occur. The feeling in the pit of my stomach reminded me of that terrible feeling I had when seeing the space shuttle "Challenger" disintegrate in midair and when I watched the towers fall on September 11, 2001.
I have watched countless reports on TV trying to figure out, in my finite mind, how something like this could occur in a small town, much like the one I live in. I have listened to commentators and preachers and politicians struggle to bring words to something for which there are no words. I look at the precious angelic faces of the children, some who have lost their two front teeth and some who haven't yet. I think of the first responders and the unimaginable scene they walked in on when they rushed in to try and save the classrooms full of children who were already gone from this Earth. A feeling of sadness settles in and for some reason it feels "right." As a parent I grieve with those who grieve and it feels "right." I feel what I hear these parents in Connecticut say.....that they want to remember their sweet children. They don't want to give voice to the evil, they only want to honor their precious little boys and girls. They don't want to talk about gun laws or mental illness or hate. They don't want anger to settle in yet. They want to hold their child and brush their hair and tell them it's only eleven more days until Santa Claus comes. The rest will come but for now they just want to grieve. That's how I feel. I don't want to analyze semi-automatic weapons or various mental disorders. Right now it just doesn't matter and to me it seems to dim the bright lights of these people who have died.
My mind goes to the killer's mother, who lost her life at the hands of her own son. She had devoted her entire life to taking care of her child. She had a love for him that only a mother knows. Sacrifices, tears, fears, that only she knew about. Yet, love immeasurable. My mind goes to the principal who was also a mother to a houseful of girls. She tried to protect her school by implementing extra security and then she tried to protect all of her students by throwing herself in front of the gun......There are countless others........the mother of 27 year old Vicki Soto who shielded her students and saved the lives of many.........
The reality of living your life as a mother is this.........when you hear the firetrucks and ambulances on the road or see the Lifeflight helicopter fly, you immediately do a mental checklist of each of your children. When you wake in the night and they aren't home yet, you immediately start calling and texting to find them. There are days when you can tell from their voice or from the look on their face that it hasn't been a good day and you would move heaven and earth to fix it. You do like Mary the mother of Jesus did, you watch and you "ponder everything in your heart." You would do just as the principal and the teachers and the first responders did.......you would take a bullet for your child without a second thought.
We went to our church Christmas program a few nights ago and the choir did a song called "Christmas in Heaven" where the writer wonders what Christmas in Heaven is like after losing someone especially close to him. I know, through my faith, and through God's word in the Bible, that every moment in Heaven is better than our minds can imagine. Sort of like the best Christmas we can ever remember. Those of us who have had people that we love pass on to Heaven can trust that these people along with all of these precious children are singing "Silent Night" with the angels and feeling the warmest light of love ever created. They are truly dancing and singing "Joy to the World, the Lord has come."
My sadness hasn't lifted yet, but in my Spirit I know that "All is Well" and that my friends and family who are already there are happy. Merry Christmas and may Jesus' love touch anyone who reads this.
