I was a freshman in college when the Columbine shootings happened. I watched the coverage, like everyone else, in horror and disbelief. I am grateful that I never went to school afraid of what might happen there, and saddened that my step-daughters don’t have that same child-like innocence.
As a daughter of a retired first grade teacher, my heart breaks for the faculty and staff at Sandy Hook Elementary. Teachers love their students immensely, and would protect them as they would their own children. They shouldn’t have to.
As a wife of a homicide investigator, my heart breaks for the first responders and the investigators on this case in Newtown, Connecticut. They are trained to see the most horrific crime scenes, but no amount of training could have prepared them for what they saw. They shouldn’t have had to.
I, like most of our country, was at a loss for words yesterday. I found comfort in a quote I saw by the late Fred Rogers, aka, “Mister Rogers” and I hope you will, too:
“When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”
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