Christmas in Connecticut

It's the title of a charming 1945 film starring Barbara Stanwyck. Christmas in Connecticut. The horror of the elementary school shooting today in Connecticut seems especially evil since it is so close to Christmas. I can imagine nothing more painful than having your child die, and in such a random, senseless way. The young man named Adam who perpetrated this crime is dead, too, and he was not much more than a child himself.

I have no easy answers. I do know that I hate guns, and question when we as a nation will we wake up and make the changes needed so that troubled people do not have such easy access to firearms. Maybe we will finally do that. Maybe that will mean that the people, those little children who died in Connecticut today, will not have died in vain. I can't believe that back in the day those who felt the need to make sure American citizens have a right to bear arms intended that to mean that one December day right before Christmas, there would be an elementary school massacre. I can't believe that was their intention.

My dear friend/roommate and I were getting ready for work this morning, when she felt she needed to turn on the TV, and we saw the coverage of this tragedy. She cried. I went to work, and one of the sweet young women I work with was crying. I didn't cry, until tonight, when I came home and sat down and started to contemplate it all. And then I cried.

How many people do I come into contact with on a daily basis who are just this far from the edge? Troubled people, angry people, sick people, desperate people? And what do I do about it? Do the smiles and kind words I give out on a daily basis ever touch them? Should we put guns into the hands of these people, making it easy for them to spread their pain to innocent people?

Today I got my Christmas package from my wonderful niece and her family. Among the other treasures, was a homemade cloth cover with one of those tiny purse sized Kleenex packages inside, lovingly made by my ten-year-old grandniece. She made me one, and also was thoughtful enough to make one for my roommate/friend, whom she has never even met. It was a bright spot of joy in the day for both of us.

The timing was perfect, because we needed Kleenex today. Today we weep. We weep as a nation. We weep as a world, for our brothers and sisters this Christmas in Connecticut.

Susan