Newtown: The End of Childhood

Once Upon a Time, In Newtown…

“But this week, they are preparing to bury 20 children, a wrenching task that includes helping secure tiny coffins and eulogizing lives that had just begun.” – The New York Times.

It was their time for toys and games, for fun and fairy-tales  – not for coffins, eulogies and funerals.  In fact, these four words – ‘children, schools, guns and death’  – should not even be in the same sentence together.  Yet this is exactly what happened at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT on that horrific day when Adam Lanza , 20,  went on a violent rampage shooting 27 people, 20 of them children between the ages of six and seven.  For these kids, life ended before it had even begun.

A ravaged nation has mourned, each individual in their own way, and somehow it’s felt wrong to smile or laugh or go about our daily routine.  Parties and dining out have seemed almost obscene – it feels almost like a death in the family. After all, each one of us has known and loved a six-year-old child or grandchild.  They are a piece of our heart.

“We know what six looks like,” writes Jen in her heartbreakingly prescient blog ‘What Six Looks Like’ “We know how it feels. How big it’s getting. How fast it outgrows its clothes and how it’s no longer a baby, but not quite yet a big kid. We know the weight of six in our arms. How we can barely carry it anymore, but try anyway because we can’t quite bring ourselves to accept the truth. We know how easily six gets its feelings hurt if someone says just the wrong thing or if this friend or that one doesn’t want to play with it or it gets in trouble at school. We know the velvety softness of six’s skin. We know the still-silkiness of its hair.”

Yes, all of us know and adore a six-year-old just like that. More than life itself.

The loss of these six and seven year old children and the teachers who died defending them has stunned the nation.

Gun Country

One can agonize about the random nature of life, the sheer senselessness of it all except for the fact that the availability of guns is a man-made abyss that is avoidable. Guns are not toys and that’s something America has to come to terms with. From the plastic make-believe guns given to kids at birthday parties to the Wild West of mindless video games to Hollywood’s unending love affair with blood and gunshots, the glorified arms culture has infiltrated the popular imagination.

So where do we go from here? As we helplessly hug our own children, we see the little lost ones in them and we realize – their deaths diminish all of us, extinguish some joy and goodness and energy in all of us. The abundance of easily available guns and the scarcity of caring, of support for those who are mentally ill – both these problems need to be addressed.

In his emotional remarks at the Sandy Hook Prayer Vigil at Newtown High School, President Barack Obama said, ” In the coming weeks, I will use whatever power this office holds to engage my fellow citizens – from law enforcement to mental health professionals to parents and educators – in an effort aimed at preventing more tragedies like this.

“Because what choice do we have?  We can’t accept events like this as routine.  Are we really prepared to say that we’re powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard?  Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?”

For the rest of us, what is there to do? We can pick up the pen and put the strength of our signatures behind gun control legislation. Below are the links to a petition to the White House. Numbers have potency, power and if enough people come together there will be results. I have signed and I hope you will too.

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/immediately-address-issue-gun-control-through-introduction-legislation-congress/2tgcXzQC

The entire NYT editorial page today focuses on one very important subject: Guns http://nyti.ms/YgmJIZ

Update: President Obama introduces A Plan to Reduce Gun Violence