We Must Look for the Good

I am not sure about writing this, I don’t know if it is a good idea to put my thoughts into words over this situation. I can’t seem to think about what exactly it is that I want to say. I am sad beyond measure for what happend at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Friday morning.

There came a point this weekend where we had to step away from the TV and the internet and get out of the house, I couldn’t watch it anymore, I have cried, I have been angry, I have felt sick. Mr. Michie took me to the movies to get our minds off of things and we watched a little Birthday party come in to see The Hobbit, they were about 8 or 9 years old and I thought, Birthday parties, there is something that will never happen for those little people in Connecticut again.

This story has affected both of us, we have not been sleeping and have had nightmares, in which the faces of those young children are replaced by the faces of our own students. I keep thinking about how frightened they must have been, how awful their last moments were. And then what if it happened here? I pray that Angels were with those children, that they protected them from the worst, that they surrounded them with love.

I look at our Christmas decorations and think of those little souls who won’t see that, who won’t be waking up before sunrise to see if Santa Claus has come, who won’t be giggling again, playing on the playground, swinging their legs from their seats, those little children who won’t be coming home.

Not only the children but also the adults who won’t be coming home as well. They all set out, thinking this was just an ordinary day. It was Friday, they had weekend plans, they had Christmas shopping, grocery shopping, homework to do, it was just any other day.

But it wasn’t, this one stone dropped in the pool and rippled, this one decision made by this person, a choice we might never know the answer too, has changed the course of all of their lives forever.

I am always saddened by loss, but somehow the loss of children, of a sweet innocent being, a life wide open, a flame sputtering out is one of the saddest losses of all. I can’t comprehend  why someone would do this.

One of my favorite movies is an older movie called, Where the Heart Is, it stars Natalie Portman and Ashley Judd. After Ashley Judd’s character is beaten up by her boyfriend and her children abused by him she moves in with Natalie Portman and Judd asks Portman, “What do I tell my children about what happened?” To which Portman replies: “You tell them that our lives can change with every breath we take… and tell ’em to hold on like hell to what they’ve got: each other… You tell them we’ve all got meanness in us, but we’ve got goodness too. And the only thing worth living for is the good. And that’s why we’ve got to make sure we pass it on.”

We must pass it on, tell someone you love them, smile at a stranger, listen to someone, ask someone how they are and mean it!

I pray for those children and the school staff who lost their lives, I pray for their family and friends and classmates. I know it is not an easy task but it is times like these that we must walk in faith, all we can do is pray, is offer comfort, is offer hope. We must still believe in miracles, still believe that good exists, that Love abounds. We must have hope that a brighter day will dawn.