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| Lila’s painting–“A Coloful Sky with Angels” |
I’m having a hard time concentrating today. After hearing, watching, and reading more details on what happened in Connecticut, it’s difficult to focus on the basketball game tonight.
Anyone that is a parent, or an aunt, or an uncle, or a brother has been thinking “what if” since the news broke. What if that was my child? What if I dropped off Lila to school, and never saw her again? How much grief those parents must feel…never seeing their babies ever again. Let’s not forget the families of the adults whose lives instantly vanished as well. The brave principal who stepped into the halls to see what those “pop” sounds were. It’s senseless. It’s sickening.
It’s particularly disturbing to think that someone planned to go into a school and needlessly murder little children. Innocent lives that never even knew that evil existed. What must have happened in Adam Lanza’s life to cause this anger and malicious intent? Was he mentally ill?
And how are the first responders coping? Imagine being a police officer in a sleepy little town, and walking into a school and witnessing the blood and death firsthand. Or being a community leader or grief counselor listening to the parents wail, and trying to help them understand why. I can’t even imagine how difficult this is for anyone in Newtown, CT…especially 10 days before Christmas.
There is much debate on social media about gun control. Should assault rifles be banned? No clue. Will it stop people from obtaining these weapons? Probably not. Should mental healthcare be more readily available? Absolutely.
But as all of these questions pour through my restless mind, I am trying to just enjoy my children today. Reading them books, singing silly Christmas songs, painting and cuddling.
After the funerals, after the proverbial smoke clears, then we should start the debate. There has to be a way to stop this sort of violence. But that’s for another day. Today we all need to just grieve, and appreciate the love in our lives.
My daughter painted the picture above yesterday, she doesn’t know what happened in Connecticut. I thought it was poetic that she painted “angels”.
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