This is how one email begain when I opened my inbox today:
This was a hard day telling Michael about what happened before knowing names. He is handling it well by asking thoughtful questions and knows that there are kids in heaven with Orazio(grandfather), Ricardo (horse), Elmo (fish), and his hermit crab.
Michael is the grandson of a friend of mine who just earlier that week attended a birthday party of one of the children who was killed in the tragedy at the elementary school and who also attended CCD (Catholic school) classes at his church taught by the mother of the same child. The wife of my friend who sent this email, who is also a friend of ours, is a nurse and was at the hospital working with a father, a NICU Physicians Assistant who has save so many babies lives, when he learned that his daughter had been shot at the school. This is the little blonde girl whose face has appeared in so many news stories. These tragic waves keep on expanding.
This is such a tough holiday season for us all. I took an unplanned trip up to see my grandchildren on Sunday...just to hug them and see them.
No one can escape from things like this but, so far as responses go, yours sounds about the best there can be. We over here shall be thinking of everyone affected for so long to come.
ReplyDeleteWe knew parents of children among the 96 at the Hillsborough disaster and have visited Dunblane in Scotland where a school shooting in 1996 put the town on the map for all time. The monument in the cathedral there is guaranteed to make all but the hardest hearted cry.
Explaining our world, as it is, to children is the hardest thing when we can't grasp it ourselves. I think it is helped a lot for those who do believe in an afterlife.
ReplyDeleteHaving a personal connection makes it all so much more real, and heartbreaking.
ReplyDeleteOh man. I have been doing my best to keep the tv off and not read any posts or FB posts about it. I just don't feel like I can talk about it or process it. I just CAN NOT imagine. I am just sick.
ReplyDeleteIt troubles me deeply just how quickly we get over these tragedies. When will we say as a people that we can do better than this to protect the most vulnerable in our society. Shouldn't it be easier to get mental health care than a gun?
ReplyDeleteI was so upset that it may have played a large part in landing me in the hospital over the weekend. Luckily, I got to see 3 of my granddaughters and hug them. They are old enough to understand what happened - although none of us can understand why.
ReplyDeleteTabor, while I am sorry your incoming this morning was, I imagine, a heartache for you. I am also grateful this mother has you for a friend.
ReplyDeleteI'm so sorry for this heartache. The whole thing is so painful to process. I know the sweet face you mean. I'm so sorry.
ReplyDeleteSuch a sad and senseless tragedy.
ReplyDeleteHugs.
It is hitting me harder now than when it happened. I don't think my brain was able to process it.
ReplyDeleteI also was sick and stayed home over the week-end (from a bug).
Now that I am out and about I tear up at every small child I see.
Totally drained...
ReplyDeletehug them for sure....they need to know there is love in the world as well as tragedy....and that love wins...it doesnt feel much like christmas these days with the shadow...and not that we ignore it but we need to create that warmth...
ReplyDeleteIt's still hard to comprehend. Just so so tragic. :(
ReplyDeleteThe only positive thing that I can think of coming out of this awful tragedy is some kind of movement on gun control. As a nation may we never forget what happened.
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