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?