Blue Friday

Early on, I decided I would not write about the tragic events that occurred in Newtown on December 14, 2012.  I had decided that far too much would be written about it and most of it would focus on the victims.  I was wrong.  Far too much is written on a person I care to not think about and/or an explanation that may never come.  However, upon seeing an interview with little Jesse Lewis' father on CNN, it made me cry in a way I hadn't over this situation.  Yes, I shed tear, but Jesse's dad's tears...wherever he is tonight, I wish him love and peace.  My words won't free him of his pain, but hopefully he will know that I understand his.

Photo Courtesy ABC News

           
Connecticut.

This is my state; this is my home.  This is where I was born and where I return to for sanctuary when the rest of the world grows grim and falls short of my warped and idyllic expectations.  It is not a perfect place.  Far from Utopia, it is; but it is my home and these are my people.  Connecticut people.

Over the years, I have seen many of my former classmates succumb to the gun violence wreaked upon them, usually at the hands of someone they knew.  Far too young they were to die, but in some way the very idea that these children mostly males, mostly of color and mostly poor were not likely to reach the age of maturity seemed acceptable.  There were times when I would hear of young children, babies, being hit by random gunfire…bullets that had the name of another written on them in the blood of the innocent. For a moment it appeared that those deaths were unacceptable, and they were until the next shooting took place and they were forgotten.  

Just two months ago in New Haven, a one-year old was caught in the midst of a drive by shooting. This isn't right, but the sad reality is that innate and systemic inequities do not afford every family the opportunity to find shelter in a community that is relatively safe. But the other reality, a second most fundamental reality is that all children, regardless of where they come from should always feel safe and find sanctuary in their schools. When that space is violated by outsiders whose sole agenda is to inflict immense pain on as many undeserving people as he can seek out, then we have a choice.  Do we try to figure out why this happened?  Do we try to prevent this from happening again? Or do we just do nothing?  Until now, we have been content in our efforts to make no effort whatsoever; so in some way, we all are to blame.  But the answer is all in how you look at what occurred in my state, in a small town, just a week ago today. It was a sunny start to the weekend that quickly turned blue.  And when the dust settles, though we may all make an effort to assuage our own feelings of guilt or prior indifference, the answer is the same.  There was one person responsible for what happened in Newtown.

I will say this and I don’t know how better to state it: there will never be any explanation or motive that will make the loss of those 26 inside Sandy Hook Elementary School feel better.  There will be no explanation that will give comfort to those who had to bury their babies nor soothe the cries of a grown child who just wants her mother to "come back," though she died heroically trying to save the lives of 500 other children.   The need to know why is purely for those of us in the public who need to be able to excuse this event so that we can go back to saying, “this can’t happen here;" for us to more easily turn a blind eye to the truth that evil does exist and can be personified.  We seek this out so that we can go on with our lives and absolve ourselves of any guilt we might feel for moving on to the next cause.  But I imagine that for those families, there will never be any explanation that will ease the pain of losing a child, a parent, a sister, or a friend.  There will never be an excuse that will make that empty chair at the table on Christmas Day be any easier to look at without shedding a tear.

Just as there will never be an explanation that will make any sense, nor will there be any living person to blame for this tragedy.  Again, I will state it, plainly: there will never be another living person to blame for violently taking the lives of those educators and their students.  We know who was responsible, we know we cannot punish him.  Saying that he was mentally ill or had other issues, in my opinion, is a way of alleviating the guilt and blame from the source all because we (outsiders) feel the need to make sense of senselessness.  That person was responsible for what he did and he knew it was wrong.  In the seconds it took for him to think of taking his own life upon hearing the sirens of police cars, indicates, at least to me, that he knew there was no way out of that situation on his terms, he had lost control, and was fearful of the consequences.  That said, I don’t care about the person who did this, who took so much from so many.  I care about those families…and all those babies and professionals who are no longer here.  I am sad for them; I weep for them.

And I am disgusted!

I am disgusted by all those people who speak using their rear end instead of the right end as they postulate any number of reasons that do not lie within the mind of the perpetrator, but with their unyielding political agenda.

Get off your proverbial political soapboxes and let's deal with the facts! No one was killed because we "systematically removed God"  from school, Mr. Huckabee.  From what I have read about how these families choose to honor each of those 26 lives, faith was at the heart of it.  Grace O'Donnell and Jessica Reko's mothers both expressed how deep their faith was to the point that as a mother of a young child, I was brought to tears. They had God in their lives and on  their side.  Whether that unfortunate being had found God in his, we can only assume that HE did not.  And even if any of those families that lost a loved one was unaffiliated with a faith or religion, what happened to them was not the wrath of God avenging his absence in school.  We haven't had "church" in schools in over 60 years.  But perhaps your needing to find God in your life is what led you to assert such a vile and horrific explanation for the insidious actions of another who, if had he found Him, would have found a far less deadly way to cope with his misery.  And then there is the obvious, that individual was an adult, he had no recently documented affiliation with the school, therefore, this point is moot.  He was not supposed to be anywhere near that school; he had no reason to be.  Those children were right where they were supposed to be: in school, with teachers who cared about them, learning.

           

Teaching, for a long time, has been a field dominated by women, just like nursing.  Oftentimes, the best schools are the ones run by women.  The shortage of males in the classroom is no secret, this has been an issue for a while, but men are being steered toward other career fields.  Further, more women are graduating from college than men, so the teaching pool looks just like any graduating class.  But let me be clear, an unarmed male teacher would have suffered the same fate as the six women.  Principal Hochsprung and School Psychologist Mary Sherlach did rush to stop that individual to protect the kids, the same as any man would have.  Vickie Soto, Rachel D'avino, Lauren Rousseau and Anne Marie Murphy all huddled children or attempted to shield them from the bullets in some way; they failed, but they tried.  There are plenty of men who wouldn't sacrifice a hair on their heads for anyone, including their own children, so this is ridiculous talk.  Think about the first victim. He shot his mother.  That takes a level of anger beyond anything I can comprehend in this lifetime or the next several.  He shot 18 females. Did it ever occur to any of you that it was a transference of that anger he had for his mother?  Find an ex-girlfriend or lack of one, and you will find a person who had issues with women.  The number of women in the building was NOT the issue, he HAD issues with women.

            

Now, we can say could've, should've, would've all day long.  The point is this: 26 people lost their lives in the school that day; 20 children and six women.  It was a blue, blue Friday morning when an adult male decided that he would take as many lives as he could before taking his own.  Every possible precaution the school leadership could have taken to protect students was implemented.  There was nothing that anyone in that school could have done in anticipation for the vulgarity that was unleashed upon them.  No one knew he was coming and the one person who could have warned anyone was shot to death as she lay sleeping. Do we need better gun laws regarding semiautomatic weapons? Yes.  Do we need to fix our mental health system? Yes. Do we need to recruit more male teachers in our schools? Perhaps.  Could we all stand to pray a bit more? Of course!  But would having any of this in place beforehand have prevented the events of that day? No.  Not when we all have free will and the ability to discern right from wrong, or to do good rather than bad with the life we have been given.  That person CHOSE to do bad; it was HIS choice.  We need not finger point anywhere else.  It was him.  And it is very, very sad.

But rather than dwelling on the bad, think about all the good things their families and friends have shared with us.  In their short time on this earth, those children and their teachers had a lot of goodness in their lives and for me, hearing about that lifts away the veil of ugliness from the situation.  I’m not saying that what happened was not ugly; for it was all too ugly.  However, the lives that were taken were far from it and I appreciate the strength and resiliency of those families for sharing their loss with the rest of us.  I am happy they have been pushing past their grief to help us focus, as a nation, on the victims and not someone I feel is unworthy of my understanding.  And as I go on with my life, not giving a care about his, I will remember that Ana loved to sing; James’ favorite dinner came from Subway; Jessica wanted cowgirl boots for Christmas; Grace “was all about peace”; Charlotte loved the color pink and was excited to wear a brand new pink dress to school that day; little Catherine loved animals; Jessie went everywhere with his father; Avielle was her father's "little humming bird"; Dylan would play tag with his neighbors at the bus stop in the morning; Daniel was "affectionate" and "thoughtful"; Allison would give you her snack, if you wanted; Madeleine was shy, but how she loved dogs; Emilie could find something good in anyone; Benjamin loved the Beatles; Olivia was only supposed to play an angel in a pageant and now she had become one in real life; Josephine loved purple and was looking forward to her birthday party the next day; Chase had just won his first minitriathalon; Jack loved the Giants and Victor Cruz was his favorite player; Noah was a prankster; Caroline was always smiling, "Silly Caroline" is what they called her.   

I will remember and I will stay here, in my home, just outside New Haven and not intrude upon theirs so that families and a community can grieve in private.  And when they are ready to emerge, I will be listening.  See, good and evil exist simultaneously. That person’s actions were pure evil, but he was surrounded by so much good in that school and in those first responders he heard off in the distance and in the community of Newtown.  To seize upon them, even with good intentions, or to blame the school or anyone in it for any of this is to give in to the whim of his evil; and that is just not something I am willing to do.  Someone loved him and rather than accepting that love he destroyed it.  But those 26 beacons of light knew love and gave a lot of it in return.  It was thought that if extinguished, that light would cloud the rest of the world with darkness.  He was wrong.  Love grew exponentially!  Perfect strangers are giving their love and their prayers to people of whom they never met.  There are a lot of individuals like the one who took these lives in every city and every corner of America, waiting for a chance to turn our sunny Friday's blue once again.  We can't let them.  We must remember.  Remember Chicago.  Remember Philadelphia.  Remember Columbine.  Remember Hartford.  Remember Bridgeport.  Remember New Haven.  Remember Newtown.  But above all, remember love and live in love; if not for yourself, do it for 26 who had so much more in them to give.

Aisha