It could have been my sister

This Connecticut shooting has me an emotional mess. I won’t lie. I just don’t deal well with this kind of stuff. That’s why I’m usually not “in the loop” with the news, because I’m just emotionally healthier not knowing, even if that’s maybe wrong.

Obviously it screwed me up because they’re kids. They’re young and little and innocent. Not all that much older than my own babes in the grand scheme of things. It’s terrifying to think of such a thing happening to my own littles.

And the absolute lack of support and attachment that that young man had to have had with both his parents and the rest of the world makes me sad and sick. To think our society has allowed for someone to feel so unloved and sad that they could do such a heinous thing. I do think parenting plays a huge part in this. Because murderers aren’t the people who had parents who loved them unconditionally and supported them and raised them attached. They just don’t. It’s proven. So that makes me sad.

But what has screwed me up the most is thinking that it could have been my sister.

I saw a photo floating around facebook before the names and ages of victims had been released.

It was of a girl. A teacher. She was young and smiling. Immediately I thought, “She can’t be much older than me.” The picture told the story of that teacher's last few moments on this earth. Upon hearing the gunshots she hid her students away in the cabinets and the closet of her classroom. When the shooter came in, she told him her students were in the gym. He shot her.

My sister is a teacher. I never thought of her teaching a class full of 4^th graders as something potentially dangerous. Crazy, sure. But dangerous, no.

I worry about my brothers. 3 out 4 of them are members of the military (the other is still far too young). One of them was a part of the last troop to leave Iraq. The potential danger in their jobs is obvious. They carry guns. They have to go to war zones when told.

But my older sister M is a teacher. She goes to school and deals with a gaggle of 9 year olds who talk back and forget to raise their hands and don’t know how to stand still in line (and I don’t blame them for that!). She spends her days teaching kids.

Kids she loves.

Kids who, if she were in the same position, I know she’d hide away in closets and cabinets.

And that scares me.

Because until Friday, I didn’t think to ever be scared. I didn’t know that that could even ever be something she’d be called to do.

I found out that teachers name was Victoria. She was 27.

The same age as my sister.

I’m sad about the children. My heart literally breaks for the parents because it’s something I could never fathom.

And I’m sad for those courageous, heroic teachers.

I’m especially sad for Victoria.

Because she could have been my sister.

Nothing worse than that

I don’t turn the TV on very often during the day. It’s just not something I’m comfortable with the little ones around.

But I did today.

And I shouldn’t have.

Plastered on every channel was a breaking news story about the massacre of more than 25 people, 18 of them just little kids, in a school in Connecticut.

I cried.

I rarely cry.

My very first thought, if I’m being honest, was: One more reason I’m not putting my kids in school.

But that wasn’t a fair thought at all. It was biased and selfish, but nonetheless, it was still there.

I can’t watch the news. I can’t watch just the “petty” crimes without feeling sick. The news was banned in my house before it was ever my house. It’s just not okay. Yes, I want to be informed of the world. But I just can’t take the emotional overload.

And this was overload.

Holy fucking God! All those babies murdered. How senseless. How tragic.

The thought of taking H to preschool one morning and it being the last time I ever see her makes me want to vomit. It definitely makes me cry.

I don’t get it. I don’t get murder at all. I understand the murder of small children even less.

It’s tragic. It’s asinine. It’s senseless. It’s monstrous.

Kids are so good and pure and innocent. They have the potential to change this world. Hopefully for the better. They whole their whole lives ahead of them.

They don’t understand this kind of violence. They don’t understand this kind of hate.

And they shouldn’t.

And they shouldn’t be exposed to it.

I was annoyed today. I was annoyed that B hasn’t slept without physically touching me for almost two weeks now. Annoyed that I have to go to bed at 7pm with him at the moment and don’t get to spend time with J. I was annoyed that B screamed and cried from 2-5am when I finally called it a day and got up. But he still cried unless I was holding him.

I was annoyed that the kids had destroyed everything I cleaned. Annoyed that the entire batch of granola I made my mom for our Christmas Sunday a certain small child dumped on the floor. Annoyed I had to make more.

I was so annoyed with just everything.

But it’s so freaking petty. At least I have a baby to insist on touching and cuddling me all night. At least I have a baby to drag my ass out of bed at the crack of dawn for. At least I have a darling to dump granola all over my floor.

Because today more than one mother lost her baby. Her little darling. She dropped him or her off at school, or waved good-bye at the bus stop, and never knew it would be the last time she’d see that precious child breathing.

And I can’t imagine anything else in the world worse than that.