Friday

I have debated and debated and debated with myself about writing about the horror that was Friday, December 14, 2012. One minute my head is full of thoughts and opinions and ideas and the next minute I am just numb from that tragedy.

I have a lot of other “posts” floating around in my head that I want to share with you all but it doesn’t seem right not to pay homage to those sweet children. I need and want to address my thoughts and emotions about  all of the moms and dads out there who are mourning the very quick, unplanned, horrific end to their journeys in the parenting of the their child.

This post is not about gun control or violence in schools or God in schools or mental health. Those are the main topics I’ve seen and heard come up on the news and on social media sites. And those topics are relevant to the tragedy on Friday and I think they should be talked about and reviewed. When we have something like this incident slap us in the face, we should start talking to each other about what drives our society and about what we can do to keep our children safe.

But I don’t want to talk about those things in this post. I just want to share what Friday meant to me as a mom. I’m glad I wrote this all down and if every time you think about Friday you start to get panicky and horrified and sad like I do/did, I suggest you write it down too. Because that incident hit a spot in the core of the “parent” community in a way that changes the way you look at things. We have to process those things and deal with them. I just don’t think we can just jump to the next big event without taking a moment to reflect and prepare ourselves as parents.

So, here’s my Friday:

Like the morning of most of those parents in Connecticut, my morning started out fairly mundane.

On Friday, I woke up sick for the second day in a row. I woke up though next to The Boss Lady and I snuggled up to her under the blankets and I just laid there listening to her breathe and thinking about how I wished we could spend the whole day like that. We took our time getting ready for school that day. I planned to stay home from work to get over the insane sinus infection I had.

When I was getting her clothes ready for school, my sweet girl INSISTED on wearing this silly cookie monster shirt. It’s this bright blue shirt with a cookie monster face on it and it’s *that* shirt that my kid wants to wear nearly every single day. It cracks me up. We’ve managed to compromise to a once a week wearing of the shirt. In a way, I dread that day because there is NOTHING else in her closet that matches that shirt. Olivia’s hair is still very short so the shirt kind of makes her look like a boy. And in a way, I love that shirt. Because she loves that shirt. Because the way she smiles when she has that shirt on and the way she lights up when she says “COOKIE!” makes me light up too.

I took her to school and went to pick up some wrapping paper so I could spend the day wrapping Christmas presents. I'm still a little amazed at how much I thoroughly enjoyed running an errand BY MYSELF and how excited I was at the prospect of having a day at home BY MYSELF. When I got home, I made my lunch. I sat down on the couch and turned on the news. That’s when I first heard about and saw the devastation in Connecticut. I had tears in my eyes the entire time I was watching the news. It was so upsetting that I eventually turned it off and sat in another room, away from the tv so as not to be tempted to turn it back on, turned on Christmas music and wrapped gifts.

I know. That sounds callous and selfish. But I bet a lot of folks had a similar reaction. My head and my heart could NOT fathom what I had seen on the news. I just could not absorb that in an instant, at the hands of another human, 20 children were just gone from this earth. I just could not make sense of any of it.

When Mike got home, we talked about it a little more. The day before, Olivia’s *big* Christmas gift had been delivered and we had been talking about how excited we are to set it up and have it ready for her Christmas morning. Mike said that it made him so sad to think of those kids’ Christmas gifts sitting under the tree or in their parents’ closets never to be opened on Christmas morning. I nearly vomited at that thought.

We went to pick up Olivia from school and I felt such joy at seeing her smile and come running out to the car. I loved the feel of her tiny body in my arms when I hugged her and I had to keep myself from squeezing her too tight. I loved the sound of her small voice and the way she chattered about anything and everything on her mind.  

We were going out of town that evening and about 30 minutes into our car ride, I was contemplating dropping my kid off at the next truck stop with a sign that said “Needs a good home and is potty trained.” True story. My joy at seeing my child just 30 minutes before had turned into a splitting headache from the constant chaos. Her small sweet voice telling me about her friends that day had become an ear drum shattering whine. The tiny body I wanted to hold so close to me had morphed into a mass of flailing arms and legs in the midst of a temper tantrum.

To me this is what parenthood is: it’s that CONSTANT roller coaster and struggle of one minute being on Cloud 9 and the next being in the 7^th Circle of Hell. It’s wanting to give your kid away to some trucker but knowing that you cannot live on this earth if they are not on it. It is feeling like your heart is going to explode from love and your head from insanity all in the same moment.

And I thought of all of those parents. I thought of what their Friday morning must have been like and what their Friday afternoon had turned into. I wondered if they let their kids pick out some ridiculous shirt simply because it made them happy. I wondered if they had to negotiate good behavior for stickers or jelly beans. I wondered if any of them were frustrated at their little munchkins when they dropped them off at school that morning. I wondered if it EVER occurred to any of them that they would never have an opportunity to be frustrated again.

I cannot count the number of times that I have dropped Olivia off at school with a sigh of relief and waved to her teachers as I drove off shouting “Better you than me!” Never has the thought occurred to me that I would not have an opportunity to be frustrated or fed up with Lady Loco ever again. It makes me sick to think about that.

As much as that child can drive me bonkers, I do not want to spend a day on this planet if she is not here. I know that if something or someone were to take her from us, Mike and I would work to make some meaning of our lives. But we wouldn’t want to. We talked about that too on Friday. We talked about how if something happens to her, we would just want to die. For both of us, it is impossible to imagine being alive when she is not. And yet 20 sets of parents were faced with that on Friday and will be faced with that for the rest of their lives. My heart breaks for them.

Here is the conclusion and the meaning I came to from the events on Friday:

I don’t believe that we live in an evil world. Yes, that man was sick and possibly evil. But I don’t think that the whole human race is. Broken, yes. Evil, no. I can’t believe this world is evil based on the outrage that every single person I know showed at this event. I know there is good out there. What I don’t know is the answer to keep stuff like that from happening again. To my child. To any child. I don’t have the answer for that. I’m not sure that anyone does.

What do I know is this: if I lost Olivia tomorrow, I would want to know that every minute I spent with her counted. I would want to know that even if I had been frustrated with her, there was a love between us that was unbreakable. I would want to know that I let her wear a silly shirt because it made her happy and because her happiness makes me happy. I would want to know that my child had been loved by me, by Mike, by any who had known her. I would want her to leave this world knowing that she had been loved.

That’s all we can do as parents: LOVE THE CRAP OUT OF OUR KIDS. We cannot protect them from all harm. We cannot keep them from being taken from us. That’s the hard core and crappy truth. As much as we try to keep them healthy and safe, sometimes that is not enough. Sometimes, things happen outside of our plans and despite our best efforts. So, for the time that Olivia is entrusted to me, I am going to just love her. When I start to feel frustrated or like I want to drop her at the nearest Flying J, I will remind myself that every single day I have to love her means something. Every. Single. Day. Even the hard ones. Even the ones when I fall into bed exhausted and spent. Even the ones when I just want to quit. Every day that I am with her, every day I get to be her mom matters. Her life matters.

Those babies that died on Friday had not been here very long. Can you imagine just 5 (or maybe a little more) years of life? The amount of time they had been here wasn't indicative of their impact. Their lives still had meaning. Their lives still mattered. They changed and shaped their parents in such a short time. I know because Oli has changed and shaped me in ways I never could have imagined. And she's done it in just 2 short years. 

When we say “life is short” never do we ever imagine “short” means just 5 years. But life can sometimes be that short. I’m going to make the most of every single instant of this life with my kiddo. I don’t EVER want to be left here without Oli but if I am, I will know that she was loved every single day of her life. I will know that she got to wear her Cookie shirt, that she got to have joy in her life.

If I lost Olivia, I would want to know that other parents could just learn to take advantage of every moment with their kids. That doesn’t mean every moment is going to be wonderful. Some of them are going to suck. But just try to be in the moment. Try to remember in those frustrating moments that it only takes one moment to take that all away.

I would want to know that people were praying for us. I would want to know that they were praying for our peace and for this world we live in where insane and awful things happen to people's babies. I would want to know that our world still had faith even when it doesn't seem possible that God was present in that moment. Prayer doesn't seem all that powerful when you have to bury your child but I think, I hope, that it is. And it is all most of us can do. Even though it is hard to see God in an event like that, I know He is there. Mike and I have and will continue to pray for those families and peace for the Newtown community throughout this tragedy. May God be with all of those families now and always.