A Time of Sadness and Reflection

Last Friday, December 14th, I watched with great sadness the details unfold about the school shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Connecticut. Tears streamed down my face as I heard the ages and number of the children and adults that were killed and the heroic efforts of the teachers at the school. My heart aches for the parents, siblings, family, and friends of those precious children and their teachers.
When I see those baby faces flash across the televison screen I cry.
I vividly remember my own children at ages 6 and 7.

It’s hard to keep quiet and still when such an injustice occours.
Everyone will handle and process the events of December 14th, 2012 in a different way in the months ahead.
There are those who will cry and mourn the loss of lives. There are those that become angry that such a thing could happen.
There are those who will be scared to let their own children out of their sight.
There are those who will wonder why the shooter unleashed his evil fury on innocents, why his mother had those guns in the home with him, and why his family didn’t see the danger he was.
Some of us as Americans will demand action and changes in the current laws with hopes that something like this will never happen again.
Some of us will feel all these things and more.

Regardless of any of this changes will hopefully be made. This event was to big, to violent, to sad not to do something about.
If that takes the form of better protection for our schools, banning the sale of certain guns, changes in mental health care, parents monitoring their childrens behavior in a more responsible way and recognizing warning signs, or just having more empathy and love toward each other. All of these things should and will hopefully be considered and discussed in a thoughtful and unselfish way. This should be a time to come together to support those who lost loved ones and find a way to make our communities and schools as safe as possible.
We can say the shooter was just evil and yes most certainly evil exists. But looking at the bigger picture what are we as Americans going to do to stop something like this from happening again. What are we going to do to contribute to the solutions and not the problems? I ask because I am asking myself these same questions.

Remember …………..

-Charlotte Bacon, 2/22/06

– Daniel Barden, 9/25/05

– Rachel Davino, 7/17/83

– Olivia Engel, 7/18/06

– Josephine Gay, 12/11/05

– Ana M. Marquez-Greene, 04/04/06

– Dylan Hockley, 3/8/06

– Dawn Hochsprung, 06/28/65

– Madeleine F. Hsu, 7/10/06

– Catherine V. Hubbard, 6/08/06

– Chase Kowalski, 10/31/05