A Letter to My Children

Dear Jackson and Lainie, 

I haven't told you about what happened on Friday. 

Partly because it doesn't seem right...you're so young and you're both so sensitive...why scare you? But partly because I don't know how.

I don't know how to explain to you that 20 little kids are never going home. I don't know how to explain to you that I cry for them even though they weren't mine, because I can't picture their parents without picturing the both of you, and how my life would come to a screeching halt if I lost either of you. I don't know how to tell you that I cry for the adults who were killed too, the teachers who died for their students. Children that weren't even theirs, they took bullets for without question. Will they ever know how beautiful that is? How even if their students were still lost, the fact that they tried, that they died trying, to protect them, means so so much? 

And I cry for the mother of the shooter.

I cry because she was a mother too, and I didn't know her, or her son, and I don't know what was wrong with him or what role she played, but I know she was a mother and she was human, and we all make mistakes, but she paid the highest price for hers.

It's the worst of all the Mom Fears.

20 years ago, she was scared out of her mind, holding a new baby and hoping for the best.

I don't know how to explain to you that I worry.

I worry about every choice I make, and I worry every time you leave my sight and I worry every time I see one of you cry and every time I see one of you do something unkind {like all children sometimes do, but still, I worry}

I worry about your tender little hearts and your fragile little bodies, and I just love you both so much I wish I could keep you safely tucked behind my big Mom hips forever.

Wrap my arms around you and pretend the world isn't scary and messed up and confusing.

I don't tell you all of this because I don't want you to be afraid.

I don't want you to weep the way I have been {in secret so you don't wonder why} since Friday. I don't want you to be scared or mad, or lose faith in people.

But I do want you to be aware of danger, and aware of how fragile everyone around you is.

How fragile we all are.

How everyone you meet is hurting from some invisible wound, some ouch that you can't see. They're all fighting some monster that you don't know about, and they could all use a little kindness. A little love.

I don't know exactly how to tell you to love people you don't even know, because you never know how much they might be needing it....but I'm trying to show you, and I hope that you see it.

And with everything I have I am trying to love you both in a way that you can always feel, always trust, and always count on.

Every second of every day, I am loving you, worrying about you, protecting you and trying to show you.

I hope your eyes are open and your ears can hear, and your little hearts always stay tender enough to let in the people who need it the most, even if they seem to deserve it the least.

I love you. 

Bigger than anyone.