Hope

Mothering kicked my ass this week. No doubt about it.

And that's as far as I got before I received a text to turn on my t.v. And now I'm saddened to the core. My heart beats heavily in my chest, and my eyes are welling up in waves.

...

I started this blog a week ago, and while I was writing, the horror of Sandy Hook overtook me. I became engulfed in overwhelming emotions, angered by my frustration with the insignificant, and overcome by grief and unfounded fears. Every child's face that flashed before me was Charlie. Every parents' nightmare story became ours. I've never lacked for empathy, but there is something about this tragedy that's shook me. I'm sure it's part Charlie, part flashbacks to lockdown drills in my classroom, and part being a freaking human being. But I had to back away. I needed time to process.

And, ultimately, I've found my perspective. I agree that we've got to do better by individuals with mental illnesses. We have to help kids. We have to listen - really listen. And trust people when people tell us who they are...good or bad. I wholeheartedly believe this tragedy could have been prevented if someone had just trusted this young man. Believed him when he showed people who he really was. What he was capable of. And I agree with the argument that guns don't kill people, people kill people. But I can't help but believe, as a society, we've made it too easy for people to use guns as a means to kill. I'm not suggesting that every citizen turn over all their firepower, but the answer isn't more guns in our schools, in our communities. Stricter gun laws have to be our reality. How could they not? Why have we waited so long? I've wracked my brain trying to come up with a viable reason a citizen would need a semi-automatic weapon. I don't know what it is. I can't figure out why it's necessary to fire off thirty bullets in a matter of seconds. Why these high-powered weapons are so readily available is beyond my comprehension. And while we argue about big government and gun control and mental illness, I can't stop imagining those moments, the fear, that helplessness. I hope it's never my reality. I hope for change.

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."

- Martin Luther King, Jr.