Last Friday, in Newtown, Connecticut, Adam Lanza walked onto Sandy Hook Elementary and started shooting.  He killed 20 children ages 6 & 7 and 6 adults.  This isn't breaking news, anymore.  Everyone knows about it.  Coverage has been relentless over the last 5 days.  You have probably read more than you care to about the subject.  So forgive me, if I take a few minutes to write down a few of my thoughts.

I started scouring articles online the moment I heard of the tragedy.  It was so horrific that I could hardly believe the words that I read.  Every article I read made me cry.  I cried for the insanity of it.  I cried for the grief that the families were going through.  I cried looking at the pictures of the sweet babies who were lost. I cried at the very thought of something so unforgivable happening to my own little loves. The last time I remember feeling so emotionally connected with something that happened to strangers was on 9/11.

Still, I read on.

In this day of instant information, you can watch, minute by minute, a tragedy play out.  You and I, who live on the other side of the United States, found out the names of the victims almost as soon as their own parents did.  Perhaps that plays a part into how deeply the whole dark event affected me.  Raw emotion seemed to seethe out of each report.  In the live news clips, not even the reporters seemed to be able to keep any distance between themselves and the senselessness.

Still, after each article, I was able to wipe off my tears from the computer, stand up and get back to whatever I happened to be in the middle of.  Making dinner.  Listening to Christmas music with the kids.  Reading a few more chapters of Fablehaven at the dinner table.  We'd laugh, go shopping,  get our homework out and we'd chide our children.

It worries me that I can live with such a stark dichotomy of emotions.  I feel so much sorrow and empathy for the ones affected, however, a click later, I am joking around with my kids.  It is almost like I'm reading a very sad novel that I can put down whenever I feel like it.

I feel ashamed at admitting this.  How is it that I can have such a disconnect between these two realities.  And if I'm admitting my most secret thoughts, I should also add that I also feel relieved that it wasn't me.  Relieved that it happened across the United States and not in my backyard.  (Our school actually is quite literally in our backyard.)   How horrible it is to say, "Thank goodness it's not me." while so many are crying, "Why me!"  But, in a hushed whisper, I say it.

I know it is important to take as much away from the experience as I can.  I'm positive that these poor, bereft parents would never wish the same to happen to anyone else.  I can imagine, however that they want us to take each moment we are gifted and hold it up as our most valued possession.  As indeed it is.

Every day, I've hugged my children a little closer to me.  I've made them a few more cups of hot chocolate and baked a little bit more than my usual.  Enjoying my family just a little bit more intensely doesn't change anything.  The news keeps filtering in.  Everyday 3 or 4 more funerals are being held.  3 or 4 tiny little caskets are being lowered into the ground.  Voices from around the world are clamoring to find a reason any of this happened.  Of course, there is no reason.  Not a reason that would make any sense to a sane mind.

And today I felt something even a little more scary than before.  I felt like not reading the news today.  I  didn't care to dwell on the grief and sadness that is never going to end for so many families and an entire community.  Instead, I felt like taking a shower and cleaning my kitchen.  How easily I have begun to move on.  I still feel sad when I think of it, but Christmas it here and I have presents to wrap and errands to run.

I managed to travel from being overly emotionally invested to passively sad in a terrifyingly short amount of time.   As the horror of this calamity starts to fade into the back of my mind, I hope that I keep, at least, a sharp sense of how quickly our time can be cut short.  Even if nothing ever befalls any of my children,  (please, please, let this be so) I know that this small time of wonder and innocence already passes too quickly.

This Christmas, I will send my prayers and heart out to the families who will have untouched presents under their Christmas trees.  I'm not sure how else to honor the lives of those sweet, tiny, strangers that flashed into my life through a series of computer images.  I feel compelled to try.  I'll try hard to be a better person and a better mother.  I'll work at getting frustrated less and appreciating more.  I'll love my family just a little more fiercely.

Now I'm looking at another computer image; one of my four smiling, beautiful children and very wonderful husband, and I wish I could capture, the happiness that each one of those faces have brought into my life.  (Imagine, the collection of laughs and giggles we could collect, flitting around like fireflies in a mason jar)

No matter what future lays in wait for me and my loved ones, I hope that I can always remember all of the joy that I have been given in my lifetime.

To all my friends and family.  I love you.  I'm grateful for your grace and for the friendship and love you have always offered to me and my little family.  I am thankful that my heart is full of experiences from every turn and challenge I ever had, where someone has reached out and touched my life. 

For this Christmas and for all the Christmases to come, I wish you happiness, joy and peace.  

Merry Christmas