Devastation

It's with a heavy heart that I come to my blog tonight.  Today's tragedy in Connecticut is burned into my brain forever.  Columbine was tragic.  Virginia Tech was tragic.  None of those people deserved what they faced that day.  However, this feels like a catastrophic event that we will never recover from. 27 people killed in the beginning of their school day.  18 of them innocent kindergartners.  18 dead 5 and 6 year old children.  18 children who probably woke up giddy about Christmas and Santa Claus and what presents they were going to get for christmas in 11 days.  18 children who were probably excited about weekend plans with their families and instead were terrorized by some maniac as soon as they got to their classroom to start the day.  18 families that are missing their precious babies, who now have a huge hole that nothing will ever fill.  And 8 other families grieving for their lost loved ones.  I cannot imagine the pain they feel.  I know the pain that I feel over this and I have never met any of these people.  It's devastating, gut wrenching, heartache.  I had to resist the urge to go yank my own daughter out of school today when I heard the news.  I know rationally that she was safe, but there was that small part of me just wanted her to never leave my side ever again.  We spend all of our time as parents protecting our kids from harms way.  What is the world coming to when sending them to school is giving them a death sentence?  When some psycho comes and kills his own mother and her classroom of youngsters?  It's incomprehensible.  Details are starting to come out about the murderer who cowardly took his own life after he was done destroying the world for the day.  He's apparently autistic.  You know what?  I don't care.  He lived 20 years without doing something like this.  I don't care how "sick" he is, how it's "not his fault" because he couldn't help himself.  The fact is that there's a special place in hell for him and I hope he's getting what he deserves.  Thats all I want to say about that, I don't want to give him anymore recognition then he's gotten today.  I want to focus on the children, and the families.  My heart grieves for them.  Today I cry for all of them.  Today I hug my daughter a little longer and am a little more patient, because I'm one of the lucky ones who still has the opportunity to do so.  Today I'm not taking her for granted.  I urge you to do the same.