now

This post could be filled with all that was wonderful this past week, two holiday concerts for G and A.  Family time with Grandparents galore.  Cookie baking and football games.  It is with a heavy heart that I write this tonight.  The realization that sweet, precious babies are gone and it feels wrong to hold mine.  It's strange isn't it? The overwhelming impulse we have to cradle whats ours when we witness people have theirs ripped away.  It seems logical, as if now you understand the gravity of your love for your children and families even more intensely than the days prior.  That is how it seemed on Friday when the news of Newtown and the tragedy that occurred there broke.  It was a normal day, screaming babies, running last minute errands, chatting on the phone, washing off counter tops, it's those days that "these" things happen.  I think until you experience a shock, a trauma in your own life you don't realize that.  You expect there to be warning, as if a dark cloud should appear over your house or car and inform you it's about to be struck and your children killed.  As if you should know that any minute at any given second, your entire life can be replaced with a new normal.  But, there is no warning, no alarm to say, "hey! pay attention, appreciate NOW!"  We tell ourselves that, over and over, live now.  Appreciate now, but it gets harder to do in our chaotic lives that we pack full with obligations, careers, activities, cleaning, and well, stuff.  So, tragedies, well they have a way of pulling you back in, they are your alarm...and sometimes, they don't have to be your own, they can be others and if you listen close enough, you can grab an ounce of intent and gratitude and thank God you did.

As I am sure all of you felt since Friday, I can't seem to wrap my head around this particular tragedy.  Who can? No one.  There are no answers wrapped in a neat package, love is messy and life even messier.  Why people make the choices they do whether it is their brain impaired with something innate or simply pure evil it doesn't seem to make sense or bring peace either way.  I think it's that we have a 5 and 6 year old, a 1st grader, our babies, just like those babies....

beautiful and loving

silly and shy 

tied up with pretty bows 

and funny faces 

 they melt us

 gentle and soft

 their excitement when greeting each other inspires us

mold us into better people 

their smiles erase our sadness 

their freedom of expression

 

you dream of their futures

 your heart breaks when you see their fears

and molds back whole when they smile

 they live in the now

worry only about this moment

 they have so much to teach us

And so, my heart lies heavy, knowing that we lost so many beautiful teachers that day, not just from the academic world, but from the world of children.  Who know how to laugh and love with pure hearts and who in that moment were filled with sheer terror and fear.  There is nothing right with that image, nothing ok with our world right at this moment.  Because all the "what ifs" were removed and became reality.  That in our beaufitul, sleepy town of Stillwater, MN, this too can happen. I could go on for days about my opinions of what the solutions could be and got into some heated debates on facebook that day, which I like.  I enjoy heated, I enjoy passion, intensity, we should be passionate and intense on keeping our children safe.  We should take this opportunity as a society to say, ENOUGH.  ENOUGH of isolation for a boy that doesn't fit.  ENOUGH of access to semi-automatic and automatic weapons in the homes of suburban moms.  ENOUGH of the blame game and finger pointing to schools.  ENOUGH of saying there is nothing that can be done evil resides everywhere.  ENOUGH of waiting for someday to come when change is needed.  ENOUGH innocent children and bodies strewn with bullets.  ENOUGH.  I say ENOUGH.  I urge you to take action.  Write to your senator, congressman, ANYONE and tell them you want changes, in whatever form you think is needed, whether that be gun control, more mental health outreach, school safety, I don't care your platform, I care to hear your voice, ringing and screaming louder than the gun shots.  Do it today.  Please.  NOW.  For these angels here on earth and up in heaven.