Vice Grip

 

My heart feels as if it’s in a vice grip.  My stomach is in knots and I feel nauseous.  My head aches and throbs.  My eyes are washed out, blurry and puffy.  I wake up nightly every hour with feelings of anxiety and sadness.  I know I will never be the same after Friday, December 14^th, 2012.  Chances are, neither will you.

 

 

All around me is NOISE. 

Chatter.  Yelling.  Sadness.  Tears.  More chatter and more arguments.

 

Some are screaming, “Ban the guns!”

 

Others are chanting, “Help our mentally ill!”

Fingers of blame are flying incessantly, like a pack of mosquitos on an overly warm summer night.  Words of ill-intent are dive-bombing everything from a cold-blooded killer’s mother, to national funding (or lack thereof), to the purported latency of gun ownership and the very words of our Constitution.

 

The quagmire of human emotions has been deeply uprooted from our very core, by a creature capable of great evil.  The circumstances surrounding this horrific event remain undetermined and at best, a multitude of theories smooshed together to try and make some sense as to the why(s).  Sometimes, however, there are no explanations and any of the proffered reasons of blame do not fit into the puzzle.

The only way I can turn the noise off, albeit momentarily, is to snuggle into my little four year old love bunch.   My ears hear the giggles emerging from her innards as I rub my face into her belly, into her neck, and as I “Eskimo Kiss” her nose with my nose.  The crushing vice grip around my ticker loosens every so slightly with every warm teeny breath my littlest blows on me.  My body begins to overflow and surge with her magic and innocent life force. 

I cry a-g-a-i-n, for each and every child lost on that dreadful day and for every adult who died trying to protect these little youngsters; my heart continues to break into another fragmented and jaded piece.  How can there be such evil in our world?  What has happened to our civilization?  What can we do to STOP this?

 

(Shhhhhhhhhh, please.  No noise.)

 

I know countless others who feel this way:  broken-hearted, utterly sad, in shock and disbelief that someone could commit such an incorrigible act on sacred school ground.  Despite being a neighboring state from where this badness occurred, it hit home for all of us – smack dab in the middle of our chests. 

I have hugged each of my children at least twenty times over each day since Friday.  “I love you” has escaped my lips more than just at the morning drop-off and at bedtime.  

I have gone and read the twenty names of Newtown’s children daily.  I weep for their parents.  I weep for their community.  I weep for our nation.

However, I am confident that my children remain safe at school.  I remain assured that goodness will prevail and it will outweigh the badness in the world.  I believe in the power of love. 

 

 

With love, we will take the time to heal, to rise up and support one another with supreme humanity. The power of love in the lives of twenty-six souls will carry on, deeply embedded in our core and emblazoned in our memory forever.  

Never forget.  12-14-12