We have made it. We have pieced it together. Haven't we? Have we?
TRUTH: IT HAS BEEN SO MESSY
We've laughed and mourned as we look at our Facebook "on this days"
And this day. It is the same the day 365 days ago with less "HOW AM I GOING TO DO IT"
Because we did it.
But we are in the space where we are afraid to name hope. See hope. Choose hope.
We lost a friend. A 3rd grader.
But we dug out. We dig out.
We see omnicrons and BAs and waves and boosters. We see families get through the virus. We see friends with what seem to be life long diagnoses and health damage. We return to school. Masks go off, they go on.
We test the sneezes and the pollens and the tummies and the scaries. We are lucky that everywhere we live a test is available.
We do what is normal. We do sports and playdates. We do sleepovers and eat in restaurants. We have birthday parties in and outside, masked and unmasked.
We have joy. Joy? Remember that?
And we have the PCRs and rapid tests still. Those are so good. Overlapping caution.
And then the world stops.
They were too young last time. Sandy Hook was an adult problem. They were a week old. And sixteen months old.
The fear was yours. The fear was mine.
I was born in Newtown/Danbury. Likely at the same hospital.
That grief is yours. That fear is yours. It's in the tiny baby old man brow wrinkles. It's in the deep dimples and the silly smiles. It's in the sleepless nights and the early mornings.
But now? You have a nine and ten year old. They were in that classroom. They could have been.
A old souled six year old. Sandy Hook aged.
But ones who have lived in the in between. In the time when grief and hope overshadow each other. They are old enough to know and understand.
They ask questions about the why and the how? About evil and mental health? About how we didn't protect the kids.
They named their preferred hiding spaces and how R's classroom is probably the safest.
They ask about death.
Overlapping caution.
And still it's dulled and resigned and unexpected and maybe that's what grief is.
Grief isn't sharp. It's rounded and dull and resigned and... unexpected.
They know that grief is as hard to own as reality with it's understandable corners and sharpness.
They know that grief and resiliency wrestle each other every day.
And please, universe, did we equip them and do we continue to do so every minute and hour and day with the right tools.
Grief is a season, a wave, and a reality. It is joy and resilience and overwhelming sadness.
Please let us be enough.
Please let us all do better.
