From across the ocean, I caught wind of the rising tide of fear and pain on Facebook yesterday. I opened up my computer and sat, stunned, as images and words flooded my screen while my daughter napped a few feet away. Before I had even figured out what really happened, the virtual world was already embroiled in a fierce debate, arguing gun control and Constitutional rights and handing out petitions to be signed.
Cutting through all that, all I could hear was the high, keening wail of a mama who has lost her baby. I've heard it before, down on the wards when there's nothing more we can do; last night, as I tried to sleep, I heard it over and over and over again. I couldn't stop thinking about all those mamas with empty arms.
Every time something like this happens, I hear people say, Hold your children tight, and I couldn't imagine how that would help. Until last night, when, for the first time, I did have my own child to hold tight, and I couldn't put her down. I rocked her and cried, my heart fluttering against my ribs like a frightened bird every time I thought about those mamas who would give anything to have their little ones wake them at one in the morning to play.
I have no wisdom, no insight, no words that can dull the razor's edge of this tragedy.
[God's voice] is the one light you have in a dark time as you wait for daybreak and the rising of the Morning Star in your hearts. (2 Peter 1:19, The Message)
Cutting through all that, all I could hear was the high, keening wail of a mama who has lost her baby. I've heard it before, down on the wards when there's nothing more we can do; last night, as I tried to sleep, I heard it over and over and over again. I couldn't stop thinking about all those mamas with empty arms.
Every time something like this happens, I hear people say, Hold your children tight, and I couldn't imagine how that would help. Until last night, when, for the first time, I did have my own child to hold tight, and I couldn't put her down. I rocked her and cried, my heart fluttering against my ribs like a frightened bird every time I thought about those mamas who would give anything to have their little ones wake them at one in the morning to play.
I have no wisdom, no insight, no words that can dull the razor's edge of this tragedy.
[God's voice] is the one light you have in a dark time as you wait for daybreak and the rising of the Morning Star in your hearts. (2 Peter 1:19, The Message)
