Last Saturday morning.
My weekend activity had just started when I heard a devastating news of 20 children and 6 adults were gunned down by a 20-year old young man at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Connecticut, U.S.A.
It was not the first school mass shooting I heard happened. But this one was all too senseless because the target was .. an elementary school.
I managed to avoid TV news for the whole day (and the day after). Couldn't resist the internet though. Once I opened a related link, my fingers couldn't stop clicking every single news posted on the net, reading every words, just to find answers ..
.. on how, why ..
My heart was heavy.
Some people might think that I overreacted. It happened in a country far away from where I stood. How it could affect me this much while in my own country, murders happened almost everyday. Some caused children's death too. I would never want to compare it with thousands of children died in the path of wars around the world. Or died by accidents, hunger, sickness and neglects. Nothing was fair.
President Barrack Obama's speech was written beautifully. Aside from the issue of his fake emotional display, it was a very moving deliverance, reflecting all parents' fear, love and loss. He cried. I cried.
My heart was too heavy.
It was 11 days before Christmas. At this time of year when holiday is coming. When trees are decorated and all lit up. Where peace on earth should never be ruined by evil formed in human. When the air should be filled with children carolings. Not with the sound of gunshots, screams and cries. Not with the sound of death.
Their pictures gave me another blow. First-graders and dedicated teachers who had to face minutes of terror and enduring piercing bullets. I found myself embracing their beaming smile, the twinkles in their eyes showed on my screen. Once again I cried for their sweetness taken away tragically.
Blame it on my sappiness. Blame it on my hormones or whatever.
.. and with this still very heavy heart, I'm posting ..
For the lost innocent little angels, for the families who have to spend Christmas in grief, for the unopened gifts under the tree ..
Thank you for all of the teachers, who read to her class during the mass shooting, for their shields, for their lives protecting their students. For their acts of courage and love ..
I am a mother of a son, who is at the same age with the youngest victim. Words may have been lost in me, but my heart is mourning together with you ..
I look at Mat while he's playing happily in his youth. I watch him sleeping at night. Every second of it I feel blessed and grateful .. for I'm still allowed to touch his face, to hug him tight and to kiss him. To see him smiling, to hear him laughing. The feeling is too enormous.
Newtown, Connecticut, 14th December 2012 ..
One child's death is one too many.
You are in a much, much better place. Rest in peace.
My weekend activity had just started when I heard a devastating news of 20 children and 6 adults were gunned down by a 20-year old young man at Sandy Hook Elementary School, in Newtown, Connecticut, U.S.A.
It was not the first school mass shooting I heard happened. But this one was all too senseless because the target was .. an elementary school.
I managed to avoid TV news for the whole day (and the day after). Couldn't resist the internet though. Once I opened a related link, my fingers couldn't stop clicking every single news posted on the net, reading every words, just to find answers ..
.. on how, why ..
My heart was heavy.
Some people might think that I overreacted. It happened in a country far away from where I stood. How it could affect me this much while in my own country, murders happened almost everyday. Some caused children's death too. I would never want to compare it with thousands of children died in the path of wars around the world. Or died by accidents, hunger, sickness and neglects. Nothing was fair.
President Barrack Obama's speech was written beautifully. Aside from the issue of his fake emotional display, it was a very moving deliverance, reflecting all parents' fear, love and loss. He cried. I cried.
My heart was too heavy.
It was 11 days before Christmas. At this time of year when holiday is coming. When trees are decorated and all lit up. Where peace on earth should never be ruined by evil formed in human. When the air should be filled with children carolings. Not with the sound of gunshots, screams and cries. Not with the sound of death.
Their pictures gave me another blow. First-graders and dedicated teachers who had to face minutes of terror and enduring piercing bullets. I found myself embracing their beaming smile, the twinkles in their eyes showed on my screen. Once again I cried for their sweetness taken away tragically.
Blame it on my sappiness. Blame it on my hormones or whatever.
.. and with this still very heavy heart, I'm posting ..
For the lost innocent little angels, for the families who have to spend Christmas in grief, for the unopened gifts under the tree ..
Thank you for all of the teachers, who read to her class during the mass shooting, for their shields, for their lives protecting their students. For their acts of courage and love ..
I am a mother of a son, who is at the same age with the youngest victim. Words may have been lost in me, but my heart is mourning together with you ..
I look at Mat while he's playing happily in his youth. I watch him sleeping at night. Every second of it I feel blessed and grateful .. for I'm still allowed to touch his face, to hug him tight and to kiss him. To see him smiling, to hear him laughing. The feeling is too enormous.
Newtown, Connecticut, 14th December 2012 ..
One child's death is one too many.
You are in a much, much better place. Rest in peace.
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