When our kids were 2 and 3, we took them on vacation to Fort Lauderdale. On our first day there, they woke up before the sun and we went straight to the beach. They played in the sand for a while and explored the beach while I snapped pictures of them and chugged my iced coffee. When they asked to go in the water, my husband took them in. The water was warm and they loved it. After about 30 minutes, they yelled up that they were hungry, so I started preparing their first of many snacks for that day. When their containers were filled with fruit and whatever else they ate at that age, I yelled for them to come up and eat. Irv said he'd be up after he took a quick dip and we both watched as they started walking the 30 feet up to where I was sitting on the beach. I waved them over, then took our big blanket and spread it across the sand, making sure none got into their precious watermelon pieces. I looked up and saw my 3-year-old daughter hopping in excitement towards her container. But I didn't see my 2-year-old son anywhere. I asked her where he is, and she just shrugged like any self-centered 3-year-old would and headed over to begin stuffing her face with juicy deliciousness. I scanned the whole beach and started to panic. It was still pretty empty, so I could see pretty far along the area but didn't see him. I began to scream his name loudly and Zoey followed suit, noticing in my eyes that something was wrong. I looked down to the water and saw nothing. It was so still, looking both beautiful and dangerous all at once. Suddenly Irv popped up from under the water and I screamed down to him, "Is Josh with you?" He screamed back up, "What? No! I saw him walking right toward you!" That's when I remember the feeling of my heart leaving its normal location in my body. It somehow moved both up and down, starting to strangle me around the neck and punch me in the gut simultaneously. All I could imagine happening was Josh turning to see his daddy still swimming in the water and running back in to go join him. At this point, 2 or 3 minutes had passed and people were started to gather around us. I was later told that my screams had turned guttural by then, but I don't have much memory of that. What I do remember is an elderly woman standing nearby yelling towards the ocean and pointing to something floating in the water. In that split second I had a crystal clear thought that my life was over, and I could feel my body starting to retch. But then I heard Irv scream Josh's name, and I turned around to behind where our blanket was to see my 2-year-old with his huge blue eyes and little toddler legs come running towards me with his arms out for a hug. "I hided mommy! I okay! I hided behind that wittle tree back there!" And in that split second I had a crystal clear thought that I would never know such pure joy as I did in that moment.
When Sandy Hook happened, I was not yet a mother. But I was a teacher in the toddler room of a Montessori School, and I will never forget the days and weeks following that horrific day when I would watch the parents run in to the building, grab their kids, and kiss and squeeze them so hard that my eyes would well up with tears. I remember thinking that if I were a parent, I would not know how to even wrap my head around what had just happened. Well, now I am a parent and I do not know how to even wrap my head around what just happened in Texas. My children are in first and third grade now. How is this our reality?
I heard that the school in Texas had all the parents gather in a building to either reunite with their child and have the most intense hug and kiss of their lives, or to wait for agonizing hour after agonizing hour, only to later realize the unthinkable had happened to them. When I think back to that moment when I saw something floating in the ocean and thought it was my son, I can still feel what I felt then. And to think that for the parents yesterday who waited in absolute agony, only to find out that the worst case scenario had occurred, that's a kind of torture I don't know how one could survive. Those parents didn't send their 2nd/3rd/4th grader sky diving yesterday. They didn't have their young children give bungy jumping a try. No, they sent their child, their entire universe, their whole reason for living, to their school. To a building they all knew almost as well as they knew their own home. A building where their friends and teachers spent every weekday, year after year. They walked into school like they did every day before, sat down to start learning and talking and playing. They discussed what they were doing for the upcoming long weekend, talked summer plans and playdates. They had snack and recess, were probably just getting hungry for lunch. And then for 19 completely and utterly innocent children, who were so loved and so adored, their short lives ended. For reasons that not one person in the world can make sense of or understand or explain right now. They say life goes on, move forward, take it day by day. But life doesn't go on for those babies and their families, and that's a fate worse than anything I could imagine.