this isn't the day to talk about this
(part 'sarah takes the wheel')

the empathy i feel for today's events is smothering. i am truly horrified. my breaking point was hearing a reporter talk about watching parents walk up to the school and double over as they learned they were taking their precious love of a child home before walking away from the crime scene. and then there were the parents who walked up to the school only to learn they were leaving empty-handed. spirit-crushing horror...

in my worldview, there is nothing in the universe more terrible than children dying. not a thing. it's the most ungodly horror i can think of. this applies to any manner of dying, too, including starving, HIV, accidental drownings, car crashes, head injuries, cancer, abuse/neglect...

i have to admit that one of my thoughts today, in the midst of sorrow, was "maybe at least now no one can  argue about gun control when the equivalent of a kindergarten classroom and a half at paine was killed by someone with a gun." surely the conversation changes when children are victims. this could be our "in." a turning point. a tragic but historical moment in time when something happens.

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or not.

once again, i was idealistic and hopeful. you may not know this, but i'm kevin's yang. i'm a glass half-full kind of girl. and i'm wrong a lot of the time. so i was really disheartened at the gun control haters i've read from in the last several hours.

kevin will be the first to tell you that i am psycho-crazy worrying about our children. all. the. time. i am constantly imagining the things that could happen to them in all of the most bizarre of circumstances.

every morning i ponder the sweet smiles and waves and kisses blown and "i love you" signs that the big girls and i exchange through their school bus window. them being on a bus terrifies me. them being in a car with anyone other than me terrifies me. them being in a car with me terrifies me. i trust nothing and no one when it comes to our children. that includes kevin. he knows this. i am never fully comfortable until they are in my reach and sight. is it because i think the world is out to get them? no, not really. but i can not bear the thought of losing them, and i am chronically worried that this may happen in a preventable circumstance. i did not say any of this was healthy. i'm just being honest.

guns have always scared me. people with guns have always scared me. not because i've worried someone was going to put one in my face (like happened to kevin twice in 2 months just a few years ago). we all saw that 90210 episode where scott shot himself when playing with a gun. i went to the funeral of a sweet teenage boy who lived in our townhomes who may or may not have intentionally/accidentally shot himself (i've always thought the former, having observed how mean the boys on the bus were to him and walking home with him in the afternoons). i love many people who i know own guns. i've shot one myself on my grandfather's farm (i was nauseated much of the time, replaying the aforementioned scene in my head over and over). i know that there a lot of people out there who do act responsibly with guns and can fully support the arguments that are made for "a right to bear arms." i do, in fact, get this.

i acknowledge the "people kill people" argument. this is true. they do. it is as good as the "god made adam and eve, not adam and steve" argument in my book, because without guns we most certainly would not have the news story we had today. there is no other comparison. yes, there are mass casualties through other means, and there are individual casualties through other means, but nothing compares to the immediate and near certain damage inflicted by a bullet. anything that can be done in a split second with no going back can not be a good thing.

it may be shocking, but i also empathize with today's shooter. i have tried imagining what he must have been feeling today and for months ahead of time. what brought him to this day where this seemed like the thing to do? how horrible of a place he must have been in to feel that this was what he had to do. unimaginable pain was surely in him. call it evil or whatever, but people who kill people are still people. and i wish for him, in addition to all the victims, that he did not have access to a gun. i could write for years on the role that mental health might have played in this event, but removing barriers to treatment and solving mental health issues in our country is considerably more of a task than adopting a "no guns here" policy. at least there are models for successful gun control in other nations.

i agree with kevin that something needs to happen. it needed to happen before 12/14/2012, though, for those sweet little babies who were caroline's age and grade and probably talking about watching polar express in their pj's next week before their holiday break. some of whom probably drove their parents crazy this morning and got yelled at or time out before they left for school because being in kindergarten has only strengthened their perceived powers of persuasion and stubbornness. their families will never know peace again.

the time is now. i appreciate that leaders are not discussing it today, but it is most certainly time. it is time for something to change. time for us to question what has been and why and how we can truly keep our world safe for those we love. we can't keep our sweet babies in a bubble or in the basement or anywhere totally safe. but we can definitely do our best to remove the dangers to them along the way.