This past Friday, 14 Dec 2012, I found myself gripping a small TV. I was anxiously hoping for information explaining why a man walked into an Elementary School in Sandy Hook, Connecticut and shot and killed 20 children and 7 adults. The Sandy Hook shooting had me quickly thinking about my daughter. My work schedule allowed me the rare chance to drive her to her Elementary School that morning. I bundled her up in her coat and over sized backpack, let her happily climb into my truck, we made jokes with each other as I drove her to school, and then I kissed her and told her I love her as I watched her skip into her school. My mind raced and my heart began to imagine what the community of Sandy Hook must have been experiencing at that very moment as parents tried to get to the school and figure out if their child, who they had just kissed goodbye and watched skip into school earlier that morning, was dead or alive.
Later that Friday I struggled to keep myself composed. Friends made anti-gun comments and my heightened emotions were still raw. Some questioned my concern for an event that is not directly tied to me. I admit, I raised my voice a bit in response because I was imagining my daughter watching a man walk into her class and shoot all her friends and then her. And then I started fighting with the thoughts of the all out panic, fear, and the ocean-sized weight of unbearable grief and despair I would have felt – what those parents are actually going through right now.
Saying, “I love you” before school starts.
The Sandy Hook Shooting and My Home
I stood in the doorway to my daughters room that night for awhile after I came home from work. I imagined what it would feel like, what 20 parents are feeling, to stare at the empty bed of your child. To know that those drawers full of small children’s clothes will never be worn again and those blankets will never be used again to tuck in a child. I listened to my daughter breathe for a moment as I stood there and sadness rained down on me imagining what it would be like to not have her in her bed in that moment. What it would have felt like to have blown that last kiss at the curb as I dropped her off to school. I sat down next to her and, just like I do every single night that I have to come home after she’s already asleep, I kissed her and whispered, “Dadda loves you.” That night it had such a deeper and more profound meaning to me. I wiped away many tears and held her little hand. This experience in Sandy Hook has reached me in ways other shootings this year have not.
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