Some Thoughts About What's Happened in Newtown, CT (Because I Can't Stop Thinking About It)

In no particular order:

• I can't stop thinking about the parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, etc. who have lost children/siblings/etc. Why do people have to live through things like this?
• I'm trying to avoid the news. Difficult.
• Sometimes I used to think about how it was selfish to have children, because how is fair is it to them to bring them into a world full of such pain, where terrible things happen every day?
• I've been to Newtown...my aunt, uncle, cousins lived there, in a perfect house at the end of a perfect street in the perfect little town...so picturesque...
• I'm not quite sure how to phrase this next part without sounding callous to the families involved...and that is not at all my intention...but although what happened is absolutely horrible, what about all the children who died of cancer on Friday? Or in car accidents? Or of suicide? Why does the nation focus on the Newtown children and not the others...the others, every day, who die...their lives are just as precious, their deaths hurt those around them horribly, too. "But it's not 20 at once," my dad says, when I tell him this. True. And there is something different about this, I just can't really put into words what it is. And maybe in some small way I'm jealous, because the whole nation didn't fly the flag at half mast when my brother was killed. I'm not saying that our response as a nation to this, to what happened to these children, is wrong...just, what about all the others?
• Are some people just plain-out evil? Do traumas occur that lead to things like this, or can I raise my kids well and still end up shot to death and one of my precious babies out murdering children?
• I was supposed to fly to San Francisco on business today...the trip got cancelled at the last minute and I'm so glad...I was dreading leaving my children.
• I don't understand why human beings have such a penchant for horrible things. I can't just think of Newton and the other recent shootings, my mind goes to all the other horrors I can't forget...very specific awful things from the Holocaust to...gosh, I'm not even going to write it down because I don't want to put it into anyone else's head...
• God bless those who are suffering because of this and...not just this...anyone who's suffering and that seems to be all too common... Really feeling the weight of the world on my shoulders today and I know I'm not the only one...

XOXO