~As The World Mourns~
Its a very depressing night. My heart is heavy with sadness for the 20 children and 6 teachers killed today at Sandy Hook Elementary school. If I feel this way I can only imagine what the families of the kids and staff who were at the school during the horrific shooting. Then there are the family of the ones murdered. It must be such an unbearable and unreal feeling all at once. One minute you are going about your day after having sent your children off to school and not even a half hour later you are getting information that there was a shooting. I don't know what they are going through but my thoughts, prayers and my heart is with them...I came here to write in order to do the only thing I know how to when something like this happens.
Imagine the thoughts of the parents and staff's family as the news registers..."Is my child/family member alright?" No one but those who have endured such news and fear of what might be can understand the thoughts that must rip through their minds all at once.
Then they reach the school. I am sure they don't even remember how they got there since their minds were glued to one goal, finding their child. Still at the same time every traffic light, turn and person ahead of them must have felt like a concrete wall keeping them from reaching their loved ones faster. Their thoughts must be reeling and their hearts in such pain. I know what its like not to know where my child is for a few minutes at a time...I know how it feels to look at my children as they were sleeping as babies and toddlers (over 15 years ago now as they are teens) and feel the desperation and the need to put my hand on their chest again and again to be sure they were sleeping and hadn't gone into an un~waking sleep. I still have to check on my kids even now. I just checked them a few minutes ago and I hope that I will have the pleasure to worry, love and check on them for many, many years to come. I don't know if I will be an old woman who gets to see my kids grow up to finish school, college, get married and have their own kids. What if I were to lose one or both of them? I cannot even endure what that would mean.
And isn't that really the worst part? We live in a state of unknowing. Tonight as we go about our business or lay down to sleep we have no idea what tomorrow will bring. Anything can happen~A fall, car accident, shooting at their school...Did I really just write that last one? Is it happening so much now that its becoming part of a list of things that I already tick off as I pray to God to protect us against? God help us if that is true.
There is nothing scarier than that idea except for this next one. My fear will allow me to pull both my kids from their high school...I will, in a move to protect them, take them out of a place they enjoy, where they gain knowledge as well as a social life to teach them at home. I will say it here and now. I do not think I can teach them as well as the school they go to does. I neither have the patience or the frame of mind (organizational sense) to make them a daily lesson plan that meets the state's or my own criteria or goals.Yet here I sit letting my fear lead my mind into the trap that these murderers have set for parents like you and I. No, I will not let them win.
So, its obvious that the answer is to help the schools to create a safer place.................Why so many dots? Because I know that the following words I will string together tonight mean will mean very little to the people who have lost their very young and innocent children and in a few months will become "Yesterday's news". And second, because you and I both know that since at least as far back as the Columbine shootings and again with 9/11 and as recently as today, schools, their staff, security teams and parents have scratched their heads straight to their brains trying to come up with a fool-proof way to protect our homes as well as schools, public buildings and airports (and on and on) and while they have saved lives, have lost another pound of hope with even one life taken. We are protecting some places so much that they have become more like prisons than places where you or I might be able to enjoy an uninterrupted see off of a friend at an airport, a forgotten lunch we want to bring straight to our kids in their classrooms or visit to a friend at their work place. Yes, its the price we will willingly pay for our safety but its a great payment. My 15-year old son can attest to having something that is supposed to be done for safety be instead found as a possibility for something worse to happen. A few weeks ago I received a frantic call from his school asking me if he was home with me. When I said "no" (with as much restraint as I could muster) the administrator told me we had a problem. My son was seen in his first few classes but after 4th period he was unaccounted for. I cannot tell you the fear and awful thoughts that all at once hit me. It was the longest hour and fifteen minutes of my life as I waited to hear back from the school. Come to find out he had decided to skip class. Something he never did before, he went outside with a few friends to sit. Not long after he found himself locked outside of his own high school with no way to get back in. The schools doors were locked as they were supposed to be for safety and buzzing in at the main door would have given away the fact that he had skipped class. I won't go into this anymore but suffice it to say that my son learned his lesson and the school got a "wake up call" after realizing that their teachers were failing to take attendance. I also learned a lesson because there were days that I would forget to call the school to let them know he was out sick. If I am not taking the responsibility to call them when he is out how will the school know if he is supposed to be out? Some things happen for a reason. I think that incident raised a lot of questions for the schools safety and their practices...But don't tell my son that since we certainly don't want to give him a reason to pat himself on the back for something that was very irresponsible of him!
So, what do we do to keep the "bad guys" out? We put locks on the doors, a buzzer at the front door near a school's main office and we practice "lock downs" and all other avenues of safety. Ok, so the doors are locked, the teachers know what to do if someone were to get in and the students have practiced where to go to hide if there is a person trying to cause harm or how to not hide if there is a fire or natural disaster. My head is already spinning just trying to think of all the what ifs that are crammed into my kids' heads.
Now imagine all that is done but its a student that got a gun or other weapon in??? There is nothing that all the drills and practicing will do that will save the first shot from possibly going off and a bullet meeting a child or teacher. Its not fast enough. Its not safe...No parent or spouse wants to have their loved one be even the one and only person killed.
Another scenario...A parent, sibling or known person buzzes the doorbell. The administration lets them in. They have a gun and a want to harm. Now, I don't know anymore than anyone else who is watching the news...I am not sure if he was "allowed" in or if he shot his way through the entrance that was supposedly just updated and secured in September. Not to feed some of the public's appetite for details, the people who figure out what happened and what needs to be changed should be viewing, taking apart piece by piece and scrutinizing over all the facts to find whats not working so they can find a better and faster way to protect the public and children. While I am sure there are already smarter people than myself trying to figure out and implement important measures to make sure nothing like this will happen again, there is no way to safeguard every person everywhere all the time. Not in a country where our freedom is just as important as our safety. If there is a way to do it, its most likely a plan that locks so many of the wrong people in *along side our own children, family and ourselves, and the right people out.
Its important that between the prayers, well wishes, tears and hugs that we also work on what we can do to stop a mad man or other catastrophe from taking so many lives if not stop it all together. I am not naive enough to believe that this will never happen again. I can wish though...And while we are doing that we have to work through our own emotions. Yes, the people in the school and the families were affected like we will never hopefully know ourselves but we, too, as neighbors and humans are grieving also and we all need to find a way to put one foot in front of the other so that Monday we don't react by locking ourselves away from the world.
Stacy J French~Roosa
Hope, believe,Breathe....<3
Imagine the thoughts of the parents and staff's family as the news registers..."Is my child/family member alright?" No one but those who have endured such news and fear of what might be can understand the thoughts that must rip through their minds all at once.
Then they reach the school. I am sure they don't even remember how they got there since their minds were glued to one goal, finding their child. Still at the same time every traffic light, turn and person ahead of them must have felt like a concrete wall keeping them from reaching their loved ones faster. Their thoughts must be reeling and their hearts in such pain. I know what its like not to know where my child is for a few minutes at a time...I know how it feels to look at my children as they were sleeping as babies and toddlers (over 15 years ago now as they are teens) and feel the desperation and the need to put my hand on their chest again and again to be sure they were sleeping and hadn't gone into an un~waking sleep. I still have to check on my kids even now. I just checked them a few minutes ago and I hope that I will have the pleasure to worry, love and check on them for many, many years to come. I don't know if I will be an old woman who gets to see my kids grow up to finish school, college, get married and have their own kids. What if I were to lose one or both of them? I cannot even endure what that would mean.
And isn't that really the worst part? We live in a state of unknowing. Tonight as we go about our business or lay down to sleep we have no idea what tomorrow will bring. Anything can happen~A fall, car accident, shooting at their school...Did I really just write that last one? Is it happening so much now that its becoming part of a list of things that I already tick off as I pray to God to protect us against? God help us if that is true.
There is nothing scarier than that idea except for this next one. My fear will allow me to pull both my kids from their high school...I will, in a move to protect them, take them out of a place they enjoy, where they gain knowledge as well as a social life to teach them at home. I will say it here and now. I do not think I can teach them as well as the school they go to does. I neither have the patience or the frame of mind (organizational sense) to make them a daily lesson plan that meets the state's or my own criteria or goals.Yet here I sit letting my fear lead my mind into the trap that these murderers have set for parents like you and I. No, I will not let them win.
So, its obvious that the answer is to help the schools to create a safer place.................Why so many dots? Because I know that the following words I will string together tonight mean will mean very little to the people who have lost their very young and innocent children and in a few months will become "Yesterday's news". And second, because you and I both know that since at least as far back as the Columbine shootings and again with 9/11 and as recently as today, schools, their staff, security teams and parents have scratched their heads straight to their brains trying to come up with a fool-proof way to protect our homes as well as schools, public buildings and airports (and on and on) and while they have saved lives, have lost another pound of hope with even one life taken. We are protecting some places so much that they have become more like prisons than places where you or I might be able to enjoy an uninterrupted see off of a friend at an airport, a forgotten lunch we want to bring straight to our kids in their classrooms or visit to a friend at their work place. Yes, its the price we will willingly pay for our safety but its a great payment. My 15-year old son can attest to having something that is supposed to be done for safety be instead found as a possibility for something worse to happen. A few weeks ago I received a frantic call from his school asking me if he was home with me. When I said "no" (with as much restraint as I could muster) the administrator told me we had a problem. My son was seen in his first few classes but after 4th period he was unaccounted for. I cannot tell you the fear and awful thoughts that all at once hit me. It was the longest hour and fifteen minutes of my life as I waited to hear back from the school. Come to find out he had decided to skip class. Something he never did before, he went outside with a few friends to sit. Not long after he found himself locked outside of his own high school with no way to get back in. The schools doors were locked as they were supposed to be for safety and buzzing in at the main door would have given away the fact that he had skipped class. I won't go into this anymore but suffice it to say that my son learned his lesson and the school got a "wake up call" after realizing that their teachers were failing to take attendance. I also learned a lesson because there were days that I would forget to call the school to let them know he was out sick. If I am not taking the responsibility to call them when he is out how will the school know if he is supposed to be out? Some things happen for a reason. I think that incident raised a lot of questions for the schools safety and their practices...But don't tell my son that since we certainly don't want to give him a reason to pat himself on the back for something that was very irresponsible of him!
So, what do we do to keep the "bad guys" out? We put locks on the doors, a buzzer at the front door near a school's main office and we practice "lock downs" and all other avenues of safety. Ok, so the doors are locked, the teachers know what to do if someone were to get in and the students have practiced where to go to hide if there is a person trying to cause harm or how to not hide if there is a fire or natural disaster. My head is already spinning just trying to think of all the what ifs that are crammed into my kids' heads.
Now imagine all that is done but its a student that got a gun or other weapon in??? There is nothing that all the drills and practicing will do that will save the first shot from possibly going off and a bullet meeting a child or teacher. Its not fast enough. Its not safe...No parent or spouse wants to have their loved one be even the one and only person killed.
Another scenario...A parent, sibling or known person buzzes the doorbell. The administration lets them in. They have a gun and a want to harm. Now, I don't know anymore than anyone else who is watching the news...I am not sure if he was "allowed" in or if he shot his way through the entrance that was supposedly just updated and secured in September. Not to feed some of the public's appetite for details, the people who figure out what happened and what needs to be changed should be viewing, taking apart piece by piece and scrutinizing over all the facts to find whats not working so they can find a better and faster way to protect the public and children. While I am sure there are already smarter people than myself trying to figure out and implement important measures to make sure nothing like this will happen again, there is no way to safeguard every person everywhere all the time. Not in a country where our freedom is just as important as our safety. If there is a way to do it, its most likely a plan that locks so many of the wrong people in *along side our own children, family and ourselves, and the right people out.
Its important that between the prayers, well wishes, tears and hugs that we also work on what we can do to stop a mad man or other catastrophe from taking so many lives if not stop it all together. I am not naive enough to believe that this will never happen again. I can wish though...And while we are doing that we have to work through our own emotions. Yes, the people in the school and the families were affected like we will never hopefully know ourselves but we, too, as neighbors and humans are grieving also and we all need to find a way to put one foot in front of the other so that Monday we don't react by locking ourselves away from the world.
Stacy J French~Roosa
Hope, believe,Breathe....<3
Well said.
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