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Last Friday twenty-six people, 20 of them children, lost their lives in Newton, CT. 

 

I have been avoiding media coverage for the most part.  I've been walking an emotional tightrope this week and have hardly been able to face the horror with all my other fears and thoughts swirling around inside my mind.

 

But then tonight, in the quiet I feel compelled to face it.  I watched clip after clip of footage and suddenly the earth cracked and my heart broke all over the floor and I've hardly been able to pull myself together.

 

All those people.  All those who witnessed it.  All those the shooter left behind to absorb his damage.  All those babies.  Oh, those babies. 

 

And my heart?  It aches.  It aches for the victims, both those that died and those that survived.  It aches for the parents.  It aches for the police officers, the emergency response teams, the hospital works.  It aches for the questions that children will ask about this, for the mentally ill, for the gun laws, for the emotionally damaged.  It aches for the teachers, for the siblings.  It aches for everything and everyone that was somehow witness or part of this tragedy.

 

I'm fighting the fear every other parent in the country is fighting, too. It feels like someone threw a box of matches on the flame of all those fears built up inside me and I am on fire with all the injustices of the world with scarcely a thing I can do about it.

 

I feel so helpless.