I didn’t cry this morning watching the bus pull away with my children. I began to well up, but I didn’t cry. I sucked it in and didn’t let myself. I kept it together, like I know I should and feel I have to, because falling to pieces every time you catch a glimpse of the news, or a school bus, or your children, is not healthy or helping.
I want to move on.
I want to hide it away in the back of my head behind so much banal mental clutter, like picking up milk or sewing a button on my husband’s coat, that I can barely find it.
I want to write about the class pictures that I just got in the mail. My 10 year old’s is amusingly bad in an almost clichéd way. I grimaced when I saw it and immediately filled out the form for a retake. When he came home a few days later, and I asked him how it went, he just shrugged. “Oh, I forgot to do it.” I looked in his back pack. Of course, there was the form crumpled on the bottom of his bag. He didn’t care, but some day, I thought with a laugh, he’d somehow blame me for his too long hair and braces, or I could use it for blackmail.
My seven year-old son’s class picture is gorgeous. His huge, green eyes are wide with hope and eagerness. He looks full of discovery and innocence and a touch of elfin mischief. He looks so young, so fresh, just growing out of baby and into boy. He looks perfect.
I want to go back to simple stuff. Normal stuff.
But that seems not only unthinkable, but callous and horrible. How can I move on, when there are people who will never move on, who will never have comfort? For them, life will never be simple or normal again. There are no retakes. Their class pictures are the last ones they’ll ever have. All of those children are forever captured at that moment of sweetness, youth and possibility.
This afternoon, the bus pulled up and my kids came bounding out.
I want to move on because I can.
I want to cry all the time, because they can’t.
Icescreammama 
Yes but you haven’t turned hard. You haven’t forgotten the lost. You are a feeling and loving human. There is nothing to be ashamed about. Cry…
Oh sweet tender you. I think your tears are valuable. And I get wanting to move forward. I love that you know how to sew a button and that you have such a tender heart.
thank you.. and in the past hour i – sewed two buttons on my husbands coat, and cried when my kids came off the bus. the school bus is a very powerful image…
Keep focusing on what matters. Your family and the incredible love you give them all
thank you. so sad. 😦
Think of the “like” as a “hug”…
thank you. now stop squeezing so hard, muscle man! 😉
we have pray for the ones who cant and count our blessings for the things we can
On Tue, Dec 18, 2012 at 2:29 PM, Icescreammama
you are so wise..
I totally get it. I feel the same way. It’s been an incredibly hard couple of days for me–I can’t even imagine how difficult it has been for those directly affected by this.
ugh!!! i’ve really been a complete mess. i guess it’s because it’s a school, that i can’t stop my nightmare fantasies, or stop thinking about all the little faces, that look kind of just like mine..
Great post. I have been unable to face it all. I know that I will have to soon. Waiting for some alone time so that I can let the tears out. Thanks for sharing.
i’ve been avoiding and facing, and honestly neither helps.. you just wish the world really was a place where this couldn’t happen.
We are feeling beings, that is why it is so hard. I will be moving along just fine and then something will trigger me to think about the families. Straight from within your heart, tears. Such tremendous loss.
As I dropped my son off at school on Monday, I was ok-ish…and then I drove away and had to pull over. I was sobbing and not because I had fear for my son, it was because I thought about the moms and dads who did the same thing at Sandy Hook last Friday. They dropped off their kids, expecting to pick them up and head into their weekend. THAT I can’t stomach. THAT tears me to pieces.
I am a “work on it until you can make it right” kind of person and that is just not possible. What I can do is choose not to live in fear, but I can live life in a way that my kids see it is worth valuing, exploring and celebrating. We can live. We can celebrate our children. We can create memories everyday. We can thank our teachers for loving our kids. We can love and reach out to others. We can smile at strangers.
thanks for you comments. there’s my fear of the world, it’s true, i can’t help it. i’ve always wanted to keep my family in a bubble. i am keenly aware of the fragility of life and, if i let it, it can freak me out. i generally don’t let it. but this, this has struck a cord so deep in my fears and my misery for those families. watching the school bus take my kids makes me cry with worry, watching it come home with my kids makes me cry because so many won’t.
but… i will always smile.. even at strangers. life is beautiful…:)
I’m crying too…….
not that i haven’t been effected by similar tragedies, but this one had devastated me…
So well said. I tell myself everyday to not read the Times and there I find myself reading about those beautiful children. It makes me angry. Angry for the parents, the children and families who are left permanently scarred and for my own children who live in a world ( or should I say country) where semi-automatic weapons are allowed to be bought by your average citizen. Hopefully we will see a change so that our children will be faced with a safer world. But for those parents…I just keep them in my thoughts.
yes, all true. i hope, i hope, i hope. it just seems so obvious…
Still weeping unpredictably over here. And coping in completely irrational ways: extra Christmas presents! Pancakes for dinner with powdered sugar! It’s like I have this weird drive to make my love tangible, as if that will somehow help.
i like your coping. and does make things a little better to show love and get those smiles. it’s therapy. tonight – pancakes!
Just read this post now…very beautiful and poignant and yes, so very sad. I too have shed many tears about this and I’ve realized that what has helped me somewhat is to try to help that community. I plan to join the snowflake making effort and send hand-made snowflakes to their PTA (with help from my kids) and I’m trying to get involved with the pet therapy efforts as well. You are right to focus on the simple, normal things…because in the end, that’s what counts.
thank you. i’ve been focusing on family time and doing those random acts of kindness. we just went around giving out hot cocoa to gas station attendants. my boys loved. happiest holidays.