12/14/12

9/11 is a date that will not be forgotten by the people of my generation just like 12/7 is a day that will live in infamy for the people of my grandparent's generation.  You would assume that the tragedy of 9/11 would be the only such event worthy of a date remembrance, that is until last Friday - 12/14/12.  The day that one very sad, very twisted individual started his day by destroying his computers, shooting his mother in her bed and taking two handguns and an automatic rifle to Sandy Hook Elementary school in Newtown, CT.  The day that this same young man decided that his anger over something we may never understand justified breaking into this elementary school and creating a carnage that would leave it's mark on the entire country.  He broke in thru a window since the school had security measures to keep their young students safe behind locked doors during school hours.  He took the lives of twenty first graders that fateful day.  Twenty babies with their whole lives ahead of them.  Twenty beautiful, loving, happy children who went off to school that morning with nary a care in the world.  He also took the lives of their principal, a substitute teacher, the school psychiatrist, a first grade teacher and two other school employees.  Women who chose a career working with, educating, and protecting children on a daily basis.

The saddest part of 12/14/12 is that the shooter will live in infamy.  His name will be remembered with the likes of Timothy McVay, Dylan Klebold, and James Holmes.....all young men who took it upon themselves to take innocent lives for reasons never fully understood.  But those precious babies and their brave educators names will eventually be forgotten by all except their family and close friends. 

After the Christmas holidays, the students of Sandy Hook will head to a temporary school and nothing will ever be the same for them again.  The principal will not be there to assure them something like this cannot and will not ever happen again in Newtown.  The first graders will be in new classrooms, with new teachers and missing twenty friends.  A beautiful and brave young teacher named Vicki Soto will not be there to teach them math and reading.  How do these survivors survive?  How long does it take to put something like this far enough in your review mirror that you can go a day without fear or sadness?  How long do those surviving first graders feel the guilt of being one of the "lucky ones"?  Do you really consider yourself "lucky" when you've lost so much in such a short time?  Do the people late for work in NY on 9/11 pat themselves on the back today because they were so "lucky" to have gotten stuck in traffic that fateful day?  Do the men who left Pearl Harbor on 12/6 feel "lucky" that they were on their way home to their families when all their buddies were fighting the fight of their lives on that beautiful Hawaiian island?  I have a sinking feeling the answer is "no, they never felt lucky".  Instead they felt guilty.  I hate to imaging a beautiful group of seven year-olds with their whole lives ahead of them spending the rest of their lives feeling guilty.

And I think I will always feel a little guilty for feeling "lucky" that I didn't live in New York on 9/11 or Newtown, CT on 12/14.