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| Photo credit: newsnet5.com |
Every parent and every educator, everyone who works with
children in any capacity, is no doubt projecting the unfathomable tragedy of
Newtown’s Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings into their own lives, deeply
aching for those reeling from their losses or the devastation they witnessed.
But the reverberation of sympathy doesn’t stop there. There
are also those – like me – who are not yet a parent or don’t work with kids on
a daily basis, but are still marred by this tragedy, our hearts saddened for
the suffering of others. Though we don’t share the same circumstance, we are
all still human. We can relate and feel each other’s pain. It is a natural
reaction to want to dissipate it, to spread the hurt among us hoping that maybe
it’ll make it just a little easier for those central to this horror.
Connecticut is my state. My husband is a teacher. Many of
our friends are teachers, one a second grade teacher at Sandy Hook Elementary
who survived the shootings and is suffering the loss of her colleagues and so
many students. My sister-in-law was good friends with the heroic Vicki Soto who
died protecting her students. Another friend studied with and was very close
with the special education teacher who was killed. There are many connections to
this tragedy that hits very close to home.
