December 14, 2012. Sandy Hook shook our collective spirit to the core. But the reaction was fleeting and the disbelief, pain and outrage faded far too quickly. I’m guessing too many people have to think hard about what I’m even referencing.
And the mass murders continue. We’ve done nothing significant to curtail the proliferation of deadly weaponry, and the sheer frequency of murders is staggering. While the pandemic and school closures seem to have put school shootings on hold, we’re holding our collective breath because nothing has really changed except our spirit has become, if anything, more fragile.
We cannot allow frequency or the passage of time to numb us. I revisit this real-time reflection a lot–it helps me stay in touch with the power of that moment. The challenge is to keep this tragedy and all the others fresh and powerful in others’ minds. I recently signed on with the Sandy Hook Promise movement so it was time to come back to my original, raw state of mind. I wonder if this essay can renew a sense of outrage and passion to change in others somehow too?
First posted as Newtown-Searching for Perspective Dec. 17, 2012 three days after Sandy Hook. Like many of us, I was struggling to make sense. That struggle has not lessened.
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I remember with absolute clarity where I was and how I felt when Kennedy was shot. Gut-punched. Heart wrenching. Newtown puts that to shame–sadly, the most “memorable” in a long line of senseless psyche-shaking tragedies. I can only wonder… why? Then, when will it happen here?
Beyond the number of victims, why is Newtown so especially devastating to me? For some reason this time it finally struck home. I’m sure the age of the little victims is part of it. What has happened to us? I’ve tried to get my head around that, and my initial answer hurts. I have a deep fear that once again, Newtown will fade away into business as usual. But that cannot be!
Immediately as always, there was a huge outpouring of well-intentioned thoughts and prayers. And outrage. Thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers….we’ll stay outraged for a time, we’ll jump up and down over the need for change for a time. Then we’ll slowly, unnoticeably slide back into “normal”. Until the next gut punch. No, “thoughts and prayers” and transient outrage won’t do. We need to keep the deep-in-our hearts sadness for the 26 we just lost forever and channel it into an unquenchable controlled rage that finally makes real change happen. Do we have it in us?
I saw the little angels’ pictures online the next morning and started reading the short tribute to each. Only made it through a small handful. While I wanted to take time to remember each, I couldn’t force myself to continue. Not yet. I have a picture of my four grandkids on my desktop, the oldest is the same age as many of the victims. I can’t put myself in that place, it’s beyond comprehension. Can’t imagine. How could someone…? But someone did, it’s not the first time. Probably not the last.
What is the first thing the Newtown community did? They rushed together at the school, at the fire house, at the churches. They needed to be close to each other. People need people.
That’s what really strikes me about Newtown and other senseless tragedies. Someone did not see some kind of warning sign and do something. But then our new social norms include staying isolated, keeping people at arms’ length, not allowing ourselves to care or get into somebody else’s business when we don’t “need to”… not getting involved where it’s not our place because it could be emotionally, or even physically, dangerous to do so. The result…we’re a society of total strangers.
So did someone not seeing, not noticing, not doing something just cost us 26 innocent, beautiful lives?
How could that happen? What’s wrong with society? Was this due to a breakdown of values and norms? A mental health issue? How could anyone do this? Normal people cannot fathom the whys or hows. Newtown is so overwhelming that I finally needed this little gonzo, disjointed let-it-out time. I have a lot of good company here. We share the pain of the families in a small but significant way.
While norms can be reinforced through laws, policy and peers you cannot legislate them into existence. Same with values. Further, it sounds like there are mental issues involved, which diminishes the impact of values and norms as factors. A “normal, well-adjusted” person cannot even think of doing this.
There is a good deal of grieving and there are a lot of questions being asked today. Sunday sermons will address the Newtown tragedy. I’m sure that some of those sermons will put the spotlight on eroding family and social values and the cheapening of human life. I just hope the message from the pulpit and from politicians and activists doesn’t devolve into yet another platform for politicizing about which side is more right or less wrong…same-sex marriage, right-to-life, legalized pot do not belong on the same page.
“I’d love to change the world…but I don’t know what to do”. One tiny little pebble I can drop into this big pond is simply to connect with other people. Care enough to invest some of my precious personal time in others …is it possible that something that simple could somehow keep someone else from going over that deadly edge?
Maybe.
I wish reflecting on this made me feel better like journaling is somehow magically supposed to do. But not this time, not yet. Or, maybe that’s the point? We must not ever get to the point of “feeling better”.
And of course, the beat goes on. Here are a few more recent thoughts and developments: Fast Forward.
One Pond-Ripples 