I had to stop listening. I had to stop checking the updates. I had to step away from the onslaught of possible scenarios, reasons and speculations because it was over. The teachers and children were already dead. The shooter was already dead. There were no more immediate threats. There was only a gaping hole where there had once been normalcy and now, I couldn't listen anymore because the coverage would continue endlessly. It would become more detailed and revealing every step of the way. And my heart was broken.
Tomorrow or the next day, we will be shown photos of those little kids -- mere babies, playing and happy before they died. I will have to look away because I know what happy, playing five- to ten-year-olds look like -- they look like my kids. And I will cry.
They will talk about the how and where and why of the shooter, his family, his friends, his Facebook page and his tweets. None of this will matter unless you are a mass-shooting, serial profiler and I am not. And I will feel frustrated.
They will talk about gun control and school safety and lock-down drills. They will debate mental health care, societal roles and video games that may have been the precursor. And I will get angry.
And then they will talk about the survivors. The other kids, the parents and the staff. And I will be speechless -- speechless because I wouldn't know where to begin to understand the gut wrenching, anguish, and suffering that those people are feeling.
Today, a nation paused in a collective gasp as it has done many times in recent history. I hazard to say that maybe this time will be different? Maybe this time it will be more then just a sharp intake of breath but instead a massive, heartbroken, crying, frustrated, angry nation that not just asks -- but yells, WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?
I'm sad beyond words, angry without direction and I'm not alone. I will take a moment tonight to watch my babies breathing quietly in their beds and will touch them because I can. I will think of those mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters and I will keep writing and keep asking, What will make a difference?