The past 3 mornings I have woken up feeling
empty, images of smiling kids are shot like lightening through my mind. Noah,
Grace, Ana, Olivia, Chase and devastatingly enough that list goes on. These
children are smiling from another world today, one that is perfect and safe.
However, pieces of them are still here, in now what is an even more broken and chaotic
place and the shattered pieces they left behind must learn to beat without them.
I read the news, the posts and opinions on this
tragedy. Everyone has something to say. Everyone. And I ask myself, what is it
that I have to say?
People are using it as an example of this and the
reason for that, and it disgusts me. Bending and shaping what happened to
reinforce their own beliefs on God, guns and mental health. Why do we demand immediate
answers? Why must we instantly place the blame?
Everyone is asking how? How does this happen? How
do we prevent it? As if the answer is on page 37.
So what if it was.
Before we begin to heal we have to have a solution?
We have to hear an expert’s take on it all and then we can sleep a little
better at night? I’ll be honest, I don’t like thinking about it. It makes me
sad. I think about the community and the men and women who arrived at the scene,
the teachers, and the children. I think of the people who are badgered by the
media with questions. I think about the families, the brothers and sisters. And
I think about my own family and friends and their children and I think about
the fear now forced upon them when they drop their kids off at school.
We are broken, and beginning to heal starts with
us taking responsibility for our own actions. Letting go of our selfish
intuition. It starts with doing the right thing every time. Somewhere along the
way we began believing we are the end all. That we are bigger than this world,
that we are somehow untouchable and not responsible. We need to evaluate our
place here and start believing in something bigger than ourselves.
So I ask myself what do I have to say? I have to
say I am sorry. To the families who have lost unjustly and to the community as
a whole, there are no answers, and while your hearts learn to beat in pieces and as you
try to breath, know that I am sorry. And maybe, right now, that’s all we need
to say.
