On days like today...

Dear Nico and Noah,

On days like today, I don't know what else to do but to write. To write to you. To put in words that when tragedy happens, all I want to do is hop in the car, pick you up from daycare, require papa to leave work early, and then all go home. I want to go home and kiss you and hug you and hold you ,and tell all three of you, over and over again, that you are my world, so you won't ever forget it.

 

 

The thing is, you can't predict days like today. This morning was just like every other morning. Together, we pointed out every truck and every bus on the way to daycare. We yelled "Good morning, river!" in unison as we crossed the Columbia, and we giggled as you bopped your heads to One Direction's "You Don't Know You're Beautiful." We gave Frosty a high-five at Sandy's and mama kissed you goodbye as many times as you would let me before you took off downstairs to play with the toys and wait for your friends to arrive.

And then I went to work. And babies, I love my work. Outside of being your mama, and papa's wife, and a daughter and a sister and an aunt and a friend, being a teacher gives me so much joy. My students fill my heart with laughter and with purpose - okay, and with some frustration - but mostly just joy. I love what I do, which is why I do it. I believe in what I do, which is why I do it. Having you two only strengthened my passion because now I understand, in ways that I couldn't before, that all of my students are somebody's baby, and that only makes what I do matter more.

Oh, and I have always felt safe going to work.

But then days like today happen, where children and teachers, just like you and me, went to school and went to work - probably singing in the car and saying hello to trucks and buses and rivers - not knowing how their lives were about to forever be altered, and then I worry. I worry about going to work, and about not staying home with you, and about the state of our world.

On days like today, I just want to cry. I want to cry and scream and ask God "Why?" I want to understand human beings and somehow, despite of what this understanding involves, still embrace humanity. I want to understand why and how we defend what we deem to be rights, when time after time, we are shown that some rights should be most certainly be priveleges.

On days like today, I want you to know that while my instinct is to pick you up and to run and to hide and to do everything in my power to make sure this never happens to us, my heart and my intellect remind me that running is not the answer, that hiding is not the answer, and that "they" are indeed "us." Their tragedy is ours, my loves, and we must stand in unison to demand that our values must change, that what we choose to defend is defendable, and that it is a moral imperative to love our children and their children and each other every second of every day. Nothing more, nothing less.

All of my love,
Your mama