Grizzy and I were in a whirl of preparations for our soon-to-arrive baby. Just one month before, we hadn't even known we were having a baby, and after twenty years of being childless, if anyone had told me that a prayer of decades would be answered with just six little words--"YOU'RE Going to Have a Baby!"--I would never have believed it. And now here we were, trying to get letters of recommendation, and go through all the classes and counseling and physicals and more classes and shopping, shopping, shopping. We'd fall into bed each night, crazed, dazed and amazed.
But we were going to be parents. WE were. All those years of watching everyone else with their babies, watching them walk their little ones to school, going to school programs for our nieces, helping with homework, buying them books and cool school supplies 'just because,' and now we would have all those things to do for our own child. And so I was sitting at the table going over a list for our next trip to Traverse City, a trip we made each week to attend to more details. I had blackberry tea steaming beside me, and a kitty purring in my lap, and I was happy clean through.
And then....newsflash.
I was glued to that television for the rest of the day, shocked and horrified and grieving, watching terrified children running from their school, watching a terribly injured boy falling from a window into the arms of those waiting to help. Different channels showed different opinions and....body counts.....and no one really knew what was happening, but everyone seemed compelled to keep talking, to try and make sense of something that made no sense at all.
I was suddenly so terrified for our baby-to-be that I could hardly breathe. I didn't even know yet if we were having a son or a daughter, and the only
real fear I'd had so far was that I would fall hopelessly in love with this child, and the mother would change her mind. I knew that to have this child--and then lose him/her--would be pain that transcended all the previous twenty years: watching a baby become a little person, watching talents and personality emerge, seeing so much potential and promise, and then gone? just like that, gone?
The parents of those students that terrible day were undoubtedly praying, hoping, waiting for the phone to ring and hoping it was the voice they most wanted to hear, freezing at the sound of a doorbell, not wanting to see who would be on the other side. They had to be thinking just the same things: but she's all set for college, we haven't even taken the prom tux back yet, oh my God, did I even tell her goodbye this morning? What was she wearing? Where would he be in the building this time of the day? Is he safe, will she come home, I don't care what it takes to get her back on her feet, we'll do whatever it takes but oh please, please, please God don't take my baby.
In the days and weeks that followed, more and more information was revealed, some of it accurate, some not, and some would never be known. All that was real was that 13 innocents died that day, and one valiant teacher. You couldn't look at those pictures and not see the terrible cruelty of being taken too soon, of having those last moments not in the arms of loving parents, but all that fear and pain. And you couldn't help but knowing that not a parent among them wouldn't have gladly laid down their own lives if it would have saved their child. My baby wasn't even here yet, but I already knew there was nothing I wouldn't give if it would give her what she needed...even one more day. Anything, anything I had or would ever own, it's yours, just please, oh please, please don't take my baby.
And I thought about the parents of the two who had perpetrated such hate and madness, and I hurt for them just as much. They were not just dealing with the loss of their child, but with the knowledge that their child had taken so many others.
Can it really be ten years?
Doesn't time stand still when you mourn ?
No.
Even if you wish it would, so you could freeze that moment just before...and make it not happen. It moves on, inexorably, and what was a living, breathing essence of joy--what a child truly is--becomes memory, becomes 'she would be 21 today.' Most of these children would be married by now, and parents, even, experiencing for themselves the wonder and magic they had been for their own parents. I read a quote about this from one of the mothers, about how the hole in her heart where her daughter was...was just the same size as her daughter. It would never grow smaller, and so you had to make your heart grow bigger.
I can understand that. All those years, there was a hole in my heart where my daughter was supposed to be. For twenty years I lived with my arms around the emptiness of her, and the feeling of her in my arms for the very first time is indescribable, even now. I looked down at her tiny, perfect face in those first few hours, and knew that no matter how many years I had with her, it would never be enough. I knew that I wanted the world for her, everything she wanted to be I wanted to make available for her. I knew that I was already so in love with her that no words could define it.
I also knew to be true something I'd read years before, that to be a parent is to walk around with your heart permanently outside your body. My heart clutches whenever my daughter leaves my sight, and even now, ten years later, every time there is yet another story like this--for, sadly, Columbine was not the first school shooting, nor the last--I find myself praying oh please, please....hoping that our town is indeed as smalltown and safe as it seems.
I've never forgotten the names of those lost that terrible day, nor will I. They live in on in memory, even in the memory of those, like me, who never knew them. Their loss that day demands increased reverence for life, and insists that more care be taken at every turn. And...I have never been able just to think 'thank God it wasn't me.' Because when a child dies, something dies in each of us. You spend all that time debating a name when your baby is on the way, wanting it to be just right, something wonderful and special, something you'll see on report cards and letters and diplomas--something you never expect to see carved in stone. Much as you hope your child will achieve great things, this is not a way you'd ever want your child's name to be nationally familiar.
In the name of:
~~Rachel Joy Scott~~Daniel Rohrbaugh~~Dave Sanders~~Kyle Velasquez~~Steven Curnow~~Cassie Bernall~~Isaiah Shoels~~Matthew Kechter~~Lauren Townsend~~John Tomlin~~Kelly Fleming~~Daniel Mauser~~Corey DePooter~~
...hold your child extra close today, protect their innocence, and say a prayer for innocence lost.
Comments (3)
Isn't it amazing how much we love our children? Mine are all grown and out of the nest now. I have four precious grandchildren that I love just as fiercely.
Seems I can feel the pain across three states. Hugs.
Wow. I was just popping around to say hi to a few people. This is a thought provoking post, my friend.