All is Calm, All is Bright

I just need to write some stuff, in light of what's been showing on the news lately.

To the parents, students, families, doctors, policemen, firemen and teachers of Newtown, Conn. I want to send my deepest, truest well wishes and shared sorrow after the tragedy that happened on Friday. I didn't even fully understand it until yesterday, the only thing I saw was the flag at my mom's school at half-mast and I wondered why.

Then I went online and saw the news.

I haven't watched much of it since, because if I do, I'm going to start crying and I won't be able to stop. I'm tearing up as I write this, thinking about it. I have little cousins, little nephews and nieces and two little kids I babysit. I love these children. To lose them in a way like this hits me so hard I can't think about it, so I try not to. Anyone who loves children should be sickened and grieved to the core that this happened. It is unfathomable to me that eighteen little boys and girls can't have Christmas this year, that their parents have undergone the worst December in years. It makes it worse for me because my mother is a teacher, I have cousins who are teachers, and we live in a city where violence is common and not unknown, especially at schools. This could happen here, but it didn't. Instead, it happened to a small town in Connecticut. I can't and I can imagine it, because I was blessed/cursed with an overactive imagination, and to even think about something like that happening in my own community makes me sick to my stomach.

Here are pictures from around the world, mourning with us. And a short piece from Longfellow, because it sums what I'm trying to articulate so much better than I ever could:

"And in despair, I bowed my head: 'There is no peace on earth,' I said, 'for hate is strong and mocks the song of peace on earth, goodwill to men.' Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: 'God is not dead nor doth He sleep; the wrong shall fail, the right prevail, with peace on earth, goodwill to men.'"
‎
Here's to peace on earth, my friends. May those who search for it find it.

Over & Out,
Rachel

Things I Have Found

And thought you'd like. Until next time, Cheerio

Over & Out,

Rachel