There are no words

I can't even begin to wrap my head around the elementary school shooting in Connecticut, let alone find the words to describe how I feel.  It stabs me at my core and becomes nearly paralyzing if I let it.  Today there is another funeral for a child taken too soon that didn't make national news because unfortunately her story, while tragic, just isn't news worthy on a national level.  The second story did emotionally paralyze me for a few days.

Both have similar undertones, I refuse to allow fear to dictate my choices.  It's not that I'm not afraid or I don't care or as was suggested in a vitriolic online rant that I don't love my kids enough to care it's that I've lived my life making choices based on fear in the past and I adamantly refuse to go back there.  Not in my home, not in schooling choices for my kids, not in political decisions I make -- some of my very worst choices were ones I made out of fear.  Each morning I get up and I make my decisions based on what I think is best, putting my kids first.  Not what makes me least afraid, not what I think someone deserves but what is going to make us the strongest family possible.  If there is a lesson to be taught, what is the best way to teach it?

I just can't turn this tragedy into a political platform, no matter how hard I try.

So each day I get up and do the menial things that build my life.  None of them are life changing or exciting, but they are me.  Each morning the sun does come up again, a neighbor steps in to help when they probably don't realize how much their help is needed right then.  The world seems to pause just for a moment and you can see beauty in the stormy sky before the wind starts to howl and blows cold through your bones.