It's been over 24 hours since the horrible, unspeakable murders of 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT. The fact that 20 of the victims were innocent first graders has left me and the entire nation in mourning and at a loss. Even now I can't help but well up with emotion with every newspaper article I read and every picture of the children that is presented.
It wasn't always this way. When the Columbine High School rampage happened in 1999, I was still single. I had no children. I felt no connection to the murder victims. Yes it was tragic but I did not feel any empathy or emotions about the incident. It was as if the news was talking about the latest bombings in the Middle East. Sorry it happened but life goes on.
The Aurora, CO movie theater shootings this past summer I wrote off as another one of America's all too frequent mass shootings. (It's terrible to write something like "all too frequent mass shootings".) I didn't get too emotional with that one either. What were all those people doing out at midnight watching a movie? Decent hard working folks don't go out at midnight to watch movies. They especially shouldn't have taken small children to the theater for a movie with multiple scenes of gory killings because they can't find a babysitter at that hour of night. Just a bunch of movie fanatics with poor judgement.
But the Sandy Hook massacre is something else altogether. I feel like I can put myself in those poor parents' shoes. Though I can't fully comprehend the trauma they are going through, and hopefully never will, I still weep with them. Perhaps it's because I have two children in the same age category as the victims, elementary school children who still believe in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy.
Ironically one of our kindergarten teachers earlier this year got into trouble for trying to explain to the children this exact scenerio in class. The kids were having a combined earthquake and disaster drill one morning. When one of the kids in my son's class asked the teacher what kind of disaster they are preparing for, the teacher told him they practice the drill in case some gunman walks into the school and starts shooting people.
Some of the students started crying. They told their parents what happened in class. Several of them had nightmares that night. The parents were in an uproar the next day. They cornered the principal and demanded an apology. The principal had to discipline the teacher and write a letter to all the parents to explain why the teacher had gone overboard with the drills.
Now it all seems so sadly prophetic.
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