A Memory I Wish I Could Erase

On December 14, 2012, our day started off as routine a day as one with five children begins. After an unexpected emergency room trip with Nanners, we returned home to get going on school work. My MIL and Mom were already hard at work with Spunky Girl &  Baby Big Girl. Nanners and I came in, jumping back into a routine that we know all too well.

Then The Boy called. No greeting. No sweet hello. Simply a stern question "Are you watching this SH**?". Taken back, I tell him we don't watch TV during the day, and I have no idea what he's talking about. Oh how I wish we could erase the events to follow.

We turned on the TV to watch in horror as Sandy Hook Elementary and the small town of Newtown, Connecticut was shaken to it's core. A deranged man, with no apparent motive broke into the small elementary school and killed 20 students and 6 teachers. This was in addition to taking the life of his own mother just minutes before he entered the school.

Hot tears streamed down our faces when we realized as mothers the anguish that those parents must be feeling. The terror those innocent children are experiencing. All I could imagine is what it would feel like to be one of those parents racing towards their child's school. The same school they dropped them off at just hours before hand to finish up their family Christmas ornament crafts, to share cookies and cupcakes with their friends, to master multiplication tables, to be kids. Your school is a "safe zone", some place where you're free to tell things without punishment, where you have people that love you like your parents, where you make your first lifelong friends. Sadly, those 20 children had all of those things and more the day their lives where stolen. Teachers who sacrificed themselves for their students that they love so dearly. Friends who offered support, and gave hugs to comfort one another. Security knowing they were safe, at least until 9:30 that morning. Then the support of their teachers hiding them, helping them escape, holding their hands, and wiping their tears away.

There are no words good enough to describe the loss of a child. No words that comfort like a parent in that situation needs. No words period.

I cried so intensely upon learning that each of the children killed that day were aged 6 years or 7 years old. My Spunky Girl is 6 years old. That is such a fantastic age, fun, full of excitement, energy, joy and happiness. Those children were the same. No parent should ever bury their child. No child should ever feel the fear of death. Siblings should grow up together. They had many forts left to build, presents to be opened, cookies left to eat, and squabbles left to be had. May the Lord comfort the families of those in Newtown through this horrific time. May He continue to comfort them in the years to come.

You will never be forgotten Sandy Hook. Never.