I Choose Compassion. I Choose Gratitude. I Choose to Remember.

Our hearts are broken.

As a mother who kisses my sweet boys goodbye every morning during the week, I take it for granted that I will kiss them again when we’re all back home after a day of work and school.  The tragedy last week forces me to recognize reality.  There is no promise of seeing them again at the end of the day.

I can only imagine the depths of pain felt by so many families who didn’t get to take their kiddos home on Friday.  I don’t think there is a parent out there who wasn’t struck down at the news, feeling like the breath had been knocked out of us, immediately weighed down by grief.  We can place ourselves there — the daily routines are in our collective consciousness.  We know the classrooms, the teachers, the office staff.  We imagine the terror, played out again and again in our mind’s eye, and we feel desperately helpless.  We ask questions – why? how will the parents go on? how do we keep our own children safe? how do we make them feel safe about going to school when we as parents are struggling?

A lot of people are looking to make sense of something where no sense exists.  We have had the rug pulled out from under us and we’re looking to find sure footing again.  But it won’t be found in looking for a motive.  It won’t be found in vitriolic arguments over gun control, anger at the media for how the ‘story’ is portrayed, or what individuals choose to express on social media outlets.  No.  There are choices to be made, and I choose a different path.

I choose to understand that there was something so terribly broken in this individual that I will never truly understand the motive, and knowing the motive will not make sense of this tragedy or make it hurt any less.  A sane and rational mind cannot make sense out of the senseless.

I choose to walk through the pain.  I will not turn from it or deflect it by throwing blame.  We are stronger when we allow ourselves to feel, and only then will we truly heal.

I choose compassion — for the victims, the families, the survivors, the family of the shooter, the shooter himself, and everyone who is hurting in the wake of this terrible day.  We all have a story, and we can never really know someone else’s story unless we’ve allowed them to tell it.  That person that just cut you off in traffic and is zipping ahead?  Maybe they are on their way to the hospital for a loved one’s final moments.  The lady at the grocery store who was so gruff?  Maybe she is beaten at home and feels nothing but pain.  We don’t ever know someone’s story, or the effect we have on them.  The smile we give may be the only acknowledgement or kindness someone gets.

I choose gratitude — for so many things, but most of all my family.  I felt overwhelmingly grateful to hug my boys after work on Friday and settle into the evening routine, just like it was any other day.  I felt like I had been holding my breath all day and having them in my arms allowed me to breathe again.  I am unbelievable lucky to be their mom.  I am also incredibly grateful for the teachers in my boys’ lives.  The remarkable women in their classrooms are nothing short of true gifts, who have shown time and again that they care for my boys as though they were their own.  I could not have chosen anyone I’d rather have with them, when I can’t be there.

And finally, I choose to remember.  As the weeks pass and the pain is no longer fresh, I choose to remember the lessons of the day.  We are not promised a future, so we best not take for granted the present.