Heaven gained 26 angels

We took the boys and Reagan to get new photos taken yesterday. I was sick. I was really sick actually and by the time we finished picking which portraits we would purchase I took the keys from Matt and headed out to the van to wait in the quiet until they were finished printing the chosen photos and we could go home and I could bury my aching head under covers. Rather than making me wait Matt drove me home and I went straight to bed and buried my whole self under 3 blankets and a pillow willing the pounding in my head to cease and the rolling in my stomach to calm. Most importantly, I slept.

I slept so hard and could not tolerate sound or light that I missed the news of another school shooting until I woke up around 6 pm.

I just wanted to crawl back into my safe cocoon and un-know that 20 children and 6 adults were murdered in a place that parents should feel safe sending their babies. I can't even imagine the horror. Truthfully, I don't even want to try.

I don't want to put myself in those parents' shoes. I can't. My mind just can't go to a place that is filled with such pain. I have cried for them and their precious angels. I have wept and thanked God that it was not my kids. I have questioned HOW and WHY this keeps happening. Mostly, I just hope and pray it stops.

The thing that got me the most yesterday was when I looked over my sweet little boys staring in wonder again at the lights on our Christmas tree and I got excited again thinking about Christmas morning when they see that in addition to the beautiful lights they will be surrounded by their loving family and brightly colored packages that are mostly for them and their baby sister. I thought of the joy of the Holiday and how that joy comes from the innocence of children and their unbridled excitement- barely contained in their tiny bodies. I thought of the smiles I will flash at my husband when our children are opening gifts and playing with new toys or stealing the toys their sister receives. Then my mind reminded me that we live in a world where there are 20 more children who will not come running down the stairs to check if Santa had come.

I hate my mind.

I hate that it can go from the happiest of thoughts to ones of unbearable sadness in such a flash.

And I just let the tears fall. I left my cheeks unwiped and I allowed my heart to feel the ache of 20 little angels in Heaven and the 6 adults who joined them there. I let my whole self shake at the thought of losing one of my babies.

I looked at Matt and at Casey and at Connor and at Reagan and I called my mom and when I knew every person that my heart holds most dear was safe I felt like I could breathe. And then I remembered that my angels would be starting school in less than a month and we would be sending our two little men out into the world and we would just have to pray that they would be safe. And I have to say- even with as much faith as I have in God and in His love- I am terrified to send my children to a place where I can't be with them, protecting them myself. I have to send them out into a world where people wander about with anger and hate in their hearts and one day they decide to let the evil take over and they kill. Maybe they kill just one person and we don't hear about it or they kill 2 or 3 and it may get a brief mention on the nightly news. Or, as happened today in Connecticut, the person decides to forever change the entire world and take away 20 innocents. 20 people who have never hurt someone and who still viewed the world as a place of wonder and saw the joy in everyday things. That man also took away 6 adults- some of whom used their bodies to protect those children. My mind can't comprehend the evil that does this. My mind doesn't understand the world that we live in that allows such hate to exist.

I don't know what to do about all this. I don't have any answers. I have prayers and hopes that we can somehow save humanity from itself. I pray that I NEVER have to bury one of my children. I pray that those families that do can find some kind of peace.

For now, I will hold my kids extra tight. I will continue to hug them and love them and smell the backs of their heads in that soft little spot at the base of their skulls and at the top of their necks where their hairline is- that special place where they smell like Heaven still. I will find more patience than I do other days when my boys are being typical 3 year olds. I will find a smile for them when they are trying to play with the baby by sitting on her thinking she can wrestle like daddy does rather than an expression of annoyance that despite being told 4 million times they still sit on her. I will be thankful that I have another day of waking up with my world completely intact and I will be able to kiss them over and over again. I can hug them to my chest and though they may struggle to get free so they can play and run and climb they will still turn to give me a quick fist bump and smile before they run off to adventure.

In short- I still have my babies. I am incredibly blessed and I know it. And for that I thank God for His love and for Him allowing me to have my babies and my husband.

I thank Him that we still can experience the JOY this season. It will be tempered with sadness for the families that do not have joy, that have only heartache.

To the parents in Connecticut, I don't know you. But my heart is with you. My prayers are with you. I am so sorry. I, along with millions more, shed tears for you and your children.

And to those babies that were lost- all 26 babies, because they were all someone's children- I pray that you are at peace, that you are surrounded by all that loved you who left the world before you and that you can see the impact you have made in this world. This mother's heart breaks that you won't be here with those that love you who remain here. God bless you all, sweet babies. You won't be forgotten.

God bless us all.

-Meghan