Just... HOW

December 14, 2012.
11 days before Christmas.
2 days before the end of Hanukkah.
20 children, ages 6 and 7.
6 teachers and administrators.
1 mother.


Gone.  Just... gone.


Was this always a possibility?  I suppose so... I suppose there was nothing before that would prevent a mad man from shooting his way into an elementary school and killing children as they tried to hide behind their teacher.  In fact, it may have been even easier before Columbine, before schools started to lock the doors and install cameras and security systems.  But really, did anyone actually think THIS was a possibility?  Did anyone else out there, despite all of the preparations, really think that this would happen?  Before Sandy Hook, did you ever once say to yourself "yes, well, today could be the day we've been expecting... today could be the day that a classroom full of first graders will be mercilessly shot."  Did you?  Because I didn't.

And yet, here it is.  Apparently, it was possible.  Apparently, we should have thought this could actually happen.

Nate is six years old and in first grade, and until Friday, I had not given more than a passing thought to the notion that he would be in mortal danger at school.  But had he been a student at Sandy Hook, there is a very good chance - indeed, greater than 50% - that he would have been killed.  Killed... but is "killed" even the right word for what was done here?  Maybe "murdered" is better... at least from a legal sense, there is a distinction to be made between a killing and a murder (though certainly, not to the victim's family).  But does "murder" even describe it?  The children were shot multiple times with a high caliber, semi-automatic weapon.  No, not ONE weapon.  Multiple weapons.  Massacred?  Exterminated?  Slaughtered?  What word do you use to describe what was wrought upon the children and their families on that day?  What word captures the terror that those children and teachers must have felt as they faced the man in body armor and two guns?  How do you fully capture the horror of being sprayed with your classmates' blood?  

And grief.  Does the word "grief" even remotely approach what the parents of the children who were slaughtered feel right now?  One news story reported that "the wails of the parents could be heard from outside the room."  Of course they could.  I suspect they still can.  What word adequately describes how you feel when you are told that your six year old has been slaughtered, 11 days before Christmas, 2 days before the end of Hanukkah, in his classroom where we have all - apparently foolishly - presumed he would be safe from such extraordinary harm?  Does the word "cored" hint at the torment?

How do you ascend from the particular level of hell where these parents have been heaved?  How do you bury your child?  How do you stand there while people express their condolences for your loss - the loss of your six or seven year old child!  How do you compose yourself while your child is lowered into the ground?  Forgive my language, but how in the FUCK do you do that?

Maybe they will simply just tell themselves - as so many others are telling them - that they will be okay again someday.  But the truth is that they will never ever be okay again, and they must know that.  Never.  They can't.  They simply can never be fully okay again, the way they were on Thursday, December 13.  Or maybe I simply couldn't.  Maybe the parents in Newtown have a reserve of strength that I am confident I do not.

And the teachers.  The TEACHERS!  The women (and men, I assume), who put their own lives ahead of the children in their classes.  The principal who, upon hearing the window being shot out, raced to confront the man with the guns.  The counselor who followed, hot on the principal's heels.  The teacher who literally shielded children from gunfire as she herself was shot over and over again, who hid half of her class in a closet and lied to the gunman about their whereabouts!  These teachers and administrators were living guardian angels who were simply outgunned.  They and their families cannot be thanked enough, cannot possibly receive enough love and gratitude for their sacrifice.  Again, words can never fully capture the admiration that we as a nation - and I as a parent - feel for what they did.  Words cannot express how hopeful I am that no teacher at Nate's school is ever compelled to do the same, but that if they are so compelled, they act with even half the level of valor as the Sandy Hook teachers and administrators did.

I simply cannot imagine the depth of pain that the parents and families of the victims feel right now, and no amount of writing helps me find words for what has happened.  I cannot bring myself to put words to what has been done here, because it should not have happened.  It should not have been a possibility, and it should never ever be a possibility again.  We should not have to tell our children about the sad, sick man who went into a school and shot people, including children.  We should not have to ask our own children's school administrators what security systems they have in place to slow down a gunman.  We should not have to hope that our children's teachers will serve as human shields in the classroom.  We should not have to have an answer to "why don't they just put concrete over the windows so that no one can get in?"

We should not.

And yet we do.

Because on Friday, December 14, 2012, a man wearing body armor went into a goddamned elementary school with two semi-automatic assault weapons, shot the principal and guidance counselor, then went into two fucking first grade classes and shot as many children as he could as many times as he could before the goddamn coward shot himself in the face.

HOW DO WE DO THIS?

Sandy Hook

It is 9:37 am and your daughter is dead.  You don’t know that yet, though, not at this point, but in years to come, you will obsess about the time, obsess about what you were doing at 9:37 am, obsess about where you were, where she was, the wild chasm between your experiences at that moment, and it will feel as though you should have known, should have acted, should have been able to act.  You will feel as though you could have stopped it.

But you couldn’t have.

There is nothing you could have done because the reality – the unchangeable reality – is that sometime earlier that morning, a man walked into her school with two guns.  To the media, the type of the guns will matter; they will say something about the man who shot and killed your daughter.  For a moment, you may think it matters.  You may think it matters why he did what he did, what happened in his life that made him go into her school with two guns.  But it doesn’t, and it never really will.  All that will ever really matter is that he walked into the school with two guns, walked into her classroom and opened fire.  All that will ever matter to you ever again is that he shot and killed your daughter.

You, of course, were not with her at that moment.  You were in a meeting, discussing project budget forecasts or headcounts or something else that is, ultimately, comparatively, inconsequential.  You might have seen a text message come in from a number you didn’t recognize and turned your phone face down in that meeting, not realizing that it was the mass-text-alert from the school advising parents that the school was on lock-down.  You will check your email and messages to try to piece together the timeline, figure out what slide you were on in the presentation at that very moment.  Did a news alert pop up on your screen, only for you to quickly close it, embarrassed that it interrupted your presentation – the presentation that you worked for days to put together?  Did you ignore the message that you could have saved her? 

You will ask yourself these questions over and over and over again.  You will assume everyone else is asking them as well.

You will imagine what it must have been like for her, that moment before she was shot, before she was killed.  You will see it in your dreams, and when you close your eyes during the day.  You will hear her screams even though you never really heard them, and don’t even really know if she did scream.  Your body will convulse as hers must have when you hear the gun shot in your head.  You will weep with your closest friends as you wonder aloud whether she saw him as he prepared to shoot her.  Did she have any idea what was going on as the gun was aimed at her?  Did she look him in the eye and give him a coy smile, like she would do when the neighbor boy would trail his toy gun on her from his yard?  Or maybe he shot her in the back.  Maybe the fucking coward shot your baby in the back, giving her no chance to plead for her life, no chance to run, no chance to escape.  Maybe he couldn’t stand to look her in the eye as he murdered her.  You will eventually find this out, whether he shot her in the face, in the chest, in the stomach, in the back, but at that moment, at 9:37 am, you have no idea.  You ignorantly believe she is in her music class like she is every other Friday, learning songs about cows or sheep or whatever children her age learn songs about.  You believe she is safe.  And you are wrong.

You will pore over these details in the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months and even years to come.  You will lose control of your voice as you tell the story, when you dare to tell the story: there you were, in your meeting or getting your coffee, while the news was just beginning to trickle out that a gunman had entered her school.  You missed the news initially – the end of the quarter was coming up, you know, so you had things you needed to do, important work that others were counting on you to deliver.  She was in music class...  She so loved her music class, so at least at that moment, you knew she was happy.  He went into her classroom, drew his gun and began firing.  You could have done something, if only you’d been there, if only she had been in gym class instead, if only you had seen the message from the school.  You could have left earlier; you could have gotten to the staging area where the children were evacuated sooner; you could have found out your daughter was dead a whole hour before you actually did.  An hour.  A whole hour.  That single hour will ultimately define your life, will make you question whether you could have prevented it from happening, will make you wonder whether she was taken by this madman because you couldn’t get there more quickly.

You will cry yourself to sleep at night because, if only you had listened to her when she said she wanted to stay home from school that day, she would be alive.  Or if you had surprised her with breakfast at McDonald’s, she would be alive.  She loved McDonald’s – even the ones without the Play Places.  Maybe you didn’t really need to be at that meeting, or you could have called in from home.  If you’d stayed home that day, maybe she would have gone into school late or just taken a day at home on the sofa watching movies, and she would be alive.  If only.  If only.  If only.

If only that man had not walked into her school with two guns and opened fire on the children.

If only.

But that is not what happened. 

Instead, it is 9:37 am and your daughter is dead.