Breathe Aimee just breathe.
It is the only thing I have control over. I am powerless in my community that is grieving such devastating loss. I am walking in a fog of grief that is palpable wherever I go. Every single person is feeling it. Every nook and cranny here has someone who has known someone who joined Heaven yesterday-mostly-the unimaginable–a child.
The town I call home and raise my children in boarders Newtown, CT. Sandy Hook is an area we frequent. This town is often intertwined with ours. My daughter went to preschool last year there, our dear friends live there, so many connections, TO many connections.
Newtown, CT is a town before yesterday, parents would be fighting over to send their kids to school in. The town is the essential picture of New England, and the perfect picture of the average American family dream. The main part of the town stands a large American flag that is the center. It is the main land mark when giving directions (people always start with “you know where the flag pole is?”), and stands in front of a church. It is a small town filled will proud American’s with deep faith, and a strong sense of community. It is a place I personally tried to get a teaching job more than once, and have wanted to move to.
Yesterday changed everything. Now Newtown, CT that once was like just any other town in the United States, is now the new Columbine. A town in my backyard. A place filled with people and things I love. Our small town innocence lost. Our bubble burst. Forever changed.
There has been many times I questioned evil. I always saw in existed from afar, but I always thought a piece of God is in each one of us. I always imagined that piece could come at the height of evil and take it down. In an elementary school that housed teachers and young students of our community I learned that evil is everywhere, even in the sweet neighboring town that my husband and I always hoped to move in to. That evil can look sweet innocent, God loving faces of children and murder them.
I tried to focus and say something powerful to God. All I had coming out of my lips in-between sobs was “PLEASE” in a begging manner. Over and over and over again. I can not focus, function, or sit in it.It is to painful.
When thinking about those 20 babies I thought about my near death experience. I know where they are, and how they feel. However, their parents can not. Quite frankly, as I watch my 6 yr old playing today, if it was my son, I would still not find solace in my own experience, because I would be stuck with the fact he wasn’t there. I nearly slept with him last night at the very thought of this. It is unimaginable–as a nation, and the fact it is miles from my sons own elementary school adds an added sense of fear and loss.
The crazy news I have to tell you all is I dreamt this the night before. Not the where part but of mass murder of children that I couldn’t save. I was shaken when I woke up and even told my husband I felt like I had to call the cops. Then my nightmare came true in my community, and I will never ever be the same. EVER.
Please Seeking Up community–please send your love and light to this place. Newtown, CT is depending on surviving this by faith alone. We need the Lord’s strength.
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