The massacre in Newtown, CT was devastating - truly unimaginable. It has been interesting to see different reactions from friends, co-workers, and on various media outlets. But it has also been really frustrating for me. I have seen the shooting blamed on guns (or lack of guns), God (or lack of God), mental illness treatment (or lack of), etc. It seems that we are all willing to quickly write this off as due to something (or not due to something).
As if this grief is collective. As if we all lost children. As if we have a right to take something as deeply and absolutely personal as the heartache or anger or sadness or confusion of a parent and make it our own. And find a convenient solution for it.
The closest thing I have to losing a child is losing my mom when I was in high school. It's not the same, I know. As I slowly dealt and continue to deal with that loss, I have blamed the doctors (all of them); family who healed too quickly; anyone who did anything known to cause cancer...smokers, tanners, etc. This is my right, she was my mom. She was not your mom. She was mine. My grief. Make a casserole, remind me of a story, just let me talk, but don't take away that thing that is uniquely mine.
This is a heavy post, but I needed to write it out. When tragedy strikes, it is not our job to make it as if it never happened. Our job is to learn from it and to support those most impacted. We are all sad and hurting as a community of people, but we are not the victims.
My biggest lesson is that life is short. Unexpectedly short. And we should hold the ones we love close. These are two of the furriest, most loving guys I know.
We were just looking at the photo of G and Baxter and I realized that Beatrice thinks Baxter's name is Pastor! Ha!
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