Forever Changed

I was packing lunches today and sobbing into a peanut butter and fluff sandwich. Concealing myself from wide eyes in the other room-- my mind raced. "Why? How could this happen? How could I be making lunches for my kids today just like parents did a few miles away last Friday unknowing how their lives would change forever? This is a place people move to to raise children and put their kids in exceptional education. We in fact wanted to move to Newtown because of the perfect 10 score they held on great schools.org. How can I leave my two kids today? How can I pretend this is just another day? They say go back to normal and this is NOTHING NORMAL about this--NOTHING!!! It isn't every day a mass murder of children in the school happens in your neighboring town. And yet today I have to let them go to school. I have to put on a brave face. I have to go grocery shopping and do ordinary things I would do on any other day as a Mom. And it SUCKS."

So much of me wants the world to pause for more then a day. I just want it to take in the mass impact this devastating tragedy has on our world. I want us all to go in our corners and grieve. I know this can't happen, I know we have to be "strong", I know the world keeps turning, but I so badly want the axis to come to a screeching halt so we can breathe.

Last Friday I first heard when I was driving and listening on the local radio station that there was an "alleged shooting at Sandy Hook". I pulled into my driveway on two wheels, and ran into my house to turn on the news. There was nothing yet. Not a single person had known it had happened besides a local DJ. Within minutes it started seeping out into the online community. They made it sound small. Just a teacher with a foot injury. Still my heart was in my throat and I texted my dear friend that lives in that exact area. I knew her little girl did not go to that school but I still needed for my own sanity that they were ok. They were. I left to get my daughter at preschool thinking the worst was over.

Lock down. The call came in moment before I pulled up to school. Why were they on lock down if they supposedly had the suspect? Rumors started to spread of a possible second person in a maroon van with the driver in a Nun's costume armed and dangerous. Someone mentioned the principal was dead. The director of the preschool that is part of the one of the main elementary schools yelled out at all of us "get in your cars". None of us wanted to be alone, and thankfully one loving Mom opened her home to the rest of us.

We got to her house to watch the news in horror. In moments it went from a teacher shot in the foot to mass murder. Mass murder that included children connected to the very town I live in, and directly connected to friends in Newtown. All of a sudden it became a media frenzy. All of a sudden the sweet town we had hoped to once move to was national-- world news!

I was unable to retrieve my kids for quite sometime. I knew that until they confirmed the rumors false that they would be in lock down. The moment the lock down was lifted I ran to get both kids at two different schools and hug them until they blurted out "Mom I can't breathe". I told them I loved them about 1,000 times. I thanked the heavens they were safe.

I watched a lot of TV. I cried every moment I sat alone. I could not sleep all night. Our small town innocence was forever lost.

I brought the baby to the doctor the next day and couldn't help but wonder how many patients they had lost.  Everywhere I went people had heavy eyes, and heavy hearts. We attended a vigil in town that was so moving and felt so united. The grief was so heavy. I felt I had to go pray in Newtown. And so I did.

The air was different. The moment I crossed the boarder from my town to theirs it was different. I didn't expect this to happen since we are minutes away. The closer we go the heavier it got. I drove by the turn to my friends house and realized three seconds more we would be "at the scene". I could not wrap my head around this fact. The devil had been in her neighborhood and came knocking and thank the good Lord her family wasn't there. I couldn't stop thinking about their grief. I couldn't stop thinking about the wall to wall media trucks, and Anderson Cooper standing in front of me moments from their home. I could not swallow all those teachers and students who went to Heaven in a matter of minutes from them. I then realized their loss.

Here I was thinking I had felt great loss with no comprehension what theirs is. Going into that town made me realize it is REALLY REAL. It isn't just some town on TV anymore. It is this place I have been a million times that my friends live in. This place my daughter went to preschool last year, and that I once went to get my haircut on a regular basis. This place that has had such a massive tragedy that the President of the United States was visiting it.

There are layers to this grieving world it goes like this:

World->Country->State->Surrounding towns/ communities->The town of Newtown->The Sandy Hook Community->The families directly affected

I could never feel what my friends feel, but I know I feel helpless in wanting to take their pain away. I know for as many times out of state friends/family say they know how I feel--they don't. I know for as much as I try to make sense of this I won't. I know for as much as the world wants to me "move on. chin up. carry on. go back to normal." I can't. My life will never go back to early morning Friday December 14, 2012 before 9:30 am. My life will always be affected, remembered, and held tight to that community. The unimaginable has happened and I am forever changed. Forever.