I saw it on Twitter first. My sandwich is still sitting there half eaten. It will not go down, not now. It will sit here with grief and me and my choice to fight fear with everything else I have and I have words and this random space on the web and that’s why I’m here.
I didn’t know where else to go because my first instinct to gather my children from daycare and school is, as much as it feels right, not.
It is a fear response and I will not bow to fear because unspeakable tragedies may force it up and out but I do not have to keep it here with me. Fear is where it begins, I think. This kind of evil is born of fear, somewhere back there or right here, in the lives of the crazed minds connected to hands connected to guns going off in the face of children.
I cannot.
I cannot fathom this and I will not sit with shooters in their fear, they cannot have my power.
I will sit here, rocking forward and back and forward and back and I will witness the accounts of this tragedy because I would want to be heard. I will bite my nails and chew on my lip and weep. Please God, please. Peace Peace Peace…there is none, please bring it back.
I cannot.
pulling my children inside with tears on my face will not bring it back. It will bring more fear and it will put us down on the ground in the mud at their feet and I will not sit there.
We. We are all sitting out here feeling sick and limbless and helpless and silent. Please speak PEACE with me. Just say that word, over and over. Please beg for peace. Please hold that grief in the palm of your hand because maybe the miracle of bearing each other’s burdens is invisible and reaches across miles and does something for the minds and hearts of the truly stricken. The horrified parents and families of those dead. Dead.
I cannot.
I will not run to drink or smoke or eat five pieces of banana bread or shut down my brain with Pinterest. I will honor their pain by feeling. Just sitting with the sandwich and the rocking and the pain that is so much lighter than theirs.
Please honor them with me.
I can’t.
{ 29 comments }
Sitting here with you. Peace. xoxo
Heather. Thank you for this. You are not alone.
Peace.
Peace, please come…
I cried…and cried…and cried. I prayed. I thought I was cried out, but I was wrong. This…this is evil. I am not saying WHO is evil, but going into an elementary school and taking someone’s baby away. That is evil.
It is so tempting to get angry. To want to get revenge. While I want answers, in the same breath, I want to protect the remaining shooter from the mobs. Justice will be served, certainly – this is the second most deadly school shooting in my lifetime. And certainly the sickest. This falls too close to home for me. My oldest started kindergarten this year. While I lived in Connecticut, I went to church in Newtown. It is a quiet, rural, beautiful town. A safe town.
I feel words coming out of me like a sickness. And being pulled back just as quickly. While I want all the details, I don’t want to spread rumors. But this pain…it has to be shared, or it will destroy us. You are right – we cannot let the fear rule us. We have to reach out to our neighbors…without judgement and without fear. Form the connections that keep us sane, that make us human. Some people say this is the end of the world. I say, as Saints, it is our job to make the end of the world as pleasant as possible – to not give in to the fear, anger and rage that storms around us.
Aunt LoLo recently posted..This Little Man
Peace I need you.. I love you. I don’t even know what to say.
tracy@sellabitmum recently posted..Bumpidoodle Giveaway
Yes. Thank you for the words I couldn’t find. I will sit here with you.
Mourning especially the loss of innocence for those children, that loss of safety–on top of all the violence, trauma and death.
Thank God children are more resilient than we are.
Sitting here with you too. Peace. Praying. Sobbing. I too refuse to give into hate, fear, bitterness and all those things that keep these kinds of senseless acts perpetuating into more acts of senseless hate and violence.
Lori recently posted..4 Years
I’m sick. Sitting in the sickness right now. I can’t step out of it. My kids are at school 45 miles from where 18 families have lost their own kids. A kindergartner. A pre-schooler. A fifth grader. I’ve never wanted to see them get of the bus as much as I do right now.
Peace be with us. Our land is so sad and messed up and yes, filled with fear, so much, too much, fear. Peace, peace be with us.
Sarah recently posted..Quote of the Week: 12/1/2012
It is taking every ounce of strength I have NOT to drive to my kids’ school and pick them up. Every time the news says *18 children killed*, I break into tears. To be a parent is to wear our heart on our sleeve. It is not my child harmed but my heart breaks like it was.
Peace, peace, peace.
Lisa/MommyMo recently posted..Oops, I’m doing it again and again!
Sitting with you.
To lose a child is one thing. To lose them like this…is something is a different level of unfathomable.
Just when I think I’ve got it together another wave hits me. I cannot imagine their pain.
I will honor their pain by feeling.
thank you for those words.
and yes, peace. begging for peace.
Adrienne recently posted..Winter Walk
Yes. I won’t shove the feelings down with any addictive behaviors. I will feel. For them and for me.
Thank you Heather. You are strong to put this on paper and share it with the universe. I can’t, too.
broken hearted – begging for peace.
sharing tears and flipping off fear.
sitting with you. stunned.
tara pohlkotte recently posted..Revival
Face down on the kitchen floor, I cry out to God to deliver us from evil. We want our children back. Peace
I am with you….peace. Peace. Please….peace.
I just cannot get out of my head what those poor little children had to face. I want to go get my boys so badly but you are right, we cannot sit in fear. I’m struggling so bad with this though and asking Why? over and over.
Peace.
Elaine recently posted..Without Children
I just can’t fathom. Such evil in this world. It makes me sick to my stomach.
Prayers for all those involved, and this crazy messed up world we live in.
Kat recently posted..That’s The Spirit
Peace. Peace. Peace.
My morning started with a heart FULL of hope and certainty that the world wasn’t such a bad place after all as I raised $200 on my blog for my daughter’s old orphanage in Ukraine. We would be giving the a Christmas party, and people had CHOSEN out of the GOODNESS of their hearts to give to these children they had never met.
And then this. What IS this?!?!? What has the world come to? I want to cling to that hope, happiness, fullness of spirit that I had this morning but it feels so small, so fragile against this giant darkness. I have TWO daughters in kindergarten…..
Peace. Peace. Peace. I can’t wrap my brain around what is happening.
Lora recently posted..9 Months Home: Operation Christmas Cheer
Peace. Beautiful, Heather
Thank you Heather. Your words are so profound and beautiful…they have helped me know that this grief is the right thing to feel and hold. Blessings to you.
Sitting with you. Peace.
Peace. Please let there be peace.
alita recently posted..Seeing through frosted window panes- our pain.
Heather, this day has been a day of tears and chills and sickness. And I learned about it at 2:30. Since then, I have pretty much not stopped crying.
I wrote about this too. Basically, I was chastising myself for feeling sorry for myself. Because this isn’t about my pain and fear. You are SOOOO right about that. And yet, I find myself crying for the families and then, turning my thoughts to my children and getting all scared! This isn’t about me. I know my daughter’s teachers. They love my daughters. They would fight for my daughters. And this didn’t happen to my daughters. But I still want to mourn for the families in Sandy Hook. The ones who are so sad that they don’t know how they will ever survive.
I don’t think we can pick ourselves up by our bootstraps, but there is NO WAY I am going to feel sorry for myself. Because that’s just selfish AND we need to be strong for them even though we don’t know them.
Gianna recently posted..Sandy Hook’s Sadness
Comments on this entry are closed.