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A Different Kind Of Day

Today I went to my job as I do almost every other school day.  I run an after school sports program and have been at the same school long enough to see kindergartners graduate high school.  In our society there are strict laws about what behaviors are acceptable.  I am very careful not to do anything that would ever be deemed inappropriate.  I limit all contact with the kids to high fives unless there is an injury.  Today, all that went out the window.  With the events that took place in Newtown, Connecticut still unfolding I felt myself tearing up as I walked through the front doors to the school. As my kids came in I found myself overwhelmed and holding it together took everything I had.  Obviously, none of the kids knew of the tragedy and their innocence was what got me.  That innocence which was ripped from so many earlier today.  As the class went on, I found myself making my way around the room and at some point and touching every one of them.  A handshake, a high five or a pat on the back. One kid leaned against me and I put my arm around him.  He is now eight and I've known him since he was a baby.  The rules didn't apply today.  Today I saw more kids get picked up by both their parents than ever before.  I saw more fathers at the school than I have seen in over a decade.  The kids ran to their parents, unaware and hugged them.  I saw the parents faces and the embraces they didn't want to give up.  We looked at each other and there were no words, because there are none.  There isn't a saying or a phrase, nor a famous quote.  Nobody has ever said anything so profound as to ease the pain over the death of a child.

Tomorrow I'll think about those kids and think of mine.  I'll feel blessed this didn't happen to them.  I'll feel sorrow for those who are now gone and for those who have to live with this memory.  I can't know the hurt, but I know mine.  We all lost a little part of ourselves today.  A little more of the innocence and in a way, a little bit of hope.  I know my friends will hug their kids a little tighter tonight.  I know that I'll be thinking about them too.  There are no words that convey what I'm feeling right now that come close to my sorrow for these strangers. I can't see a lesson or a gift that will come from this.  I can't see a silver lining or a reason that will justify this. I am trying so hard not to trivialize this and I refuse to make this blog into a stance.  I just wish there was a way we could prevent this from ever happening again.  So no parent will ever have to deal with this kind of tragedy again and no child has to lose their best friends, before they learn how to spell best friends.

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