Between the shopping, the wrapping, the decorating and the planning, I am trying as hard as I can to hold onto the wonderment of the holiday season. Christmas, for me, has always been a highlight of any year. This Christmas, however, is hanging in the balance of my wanting to celebrate with the exuberance I feel every year and the deep sadness I'm still feeling over the tragic shooting in Newton, CT. For every joyful step I take my inner child weeps for those children and their families.
Through this underlying sadness there is a thinly veiled barrage of anger too. I am angry that this happened. How dare someone take the young lives of the future - OUR future - in such a callous, senseless way. My anger is fed by reading the complete crap some people are starting to post on social media sites about guns in this country. Every ass hat has an opinion. Not everyone has a solution. I get that. I really do. People are compelled to do or say something and everyone seems to understand that "something" must be done but no one really knows what that might be.
Then I start thinking about the shooter. Having worked with people living with mental illness for some time now I can only imagine the anguish, turmoil and terror he was feeling too. It's called empathy and sometimes it's hard to have. I want to condemn him as does everyone else but I can't. I can hate his actions to the core of my being but I cannot hate the person. What I can hate is a society that makes it very easy to have access to guns. NRA be damned. I cannot fathom why, this mother who clearly from all reports was dealing with a very ill young man for a very long time, would have free access to gun in their home. What I can also hate is a society and a government that keeps cutting funding for mental health services making my job and the jobs of every other human service worker all that much harder. When the best we can do is not good enough then we need to take a hard look at ourselves. What does this country value most when programs that benefit the good of the whole - like education, mental health, aging and disability resources - get trimmed so much that they become "token" resources that can do little to address the needs of someone like this shooter. We cannot "lock them all up", folks. They are us! And we need to have meaningful dialogue and serious actions to address the need. We cannot continue to marginalize the ill, elderly or disabled. We cannot expect them to live below the poverty level, unable to afford treatment and then cut funding to public services that might help them. Shame on us! Years from now, long after you and I are gone, historians and archaeologists will look back and wonder why we treated our needy so poorly.
Then I get really angry thinking how the NRA and their lobbyists are holding this country captive by squelching any restraints and gagging any dialogue. It's time for the rest of us to tell them, in no uncertain terms, NO MORE! Can we stop all gun violence? Probably not. But not one more child, who should be safe in their school, should be killed. Not one more. We have to make a change. It's easier for us to say "Oh, he was mentally ill." than to speak to the real issue. The real issue is this - he was someones child too. Just like the 20 angels who were killed. All children, all lost. And we can hold our own children close and give thanks that it wasn't us but it was us! These were all our children - even the one who pulled the trigger.
So, I will celebrate Christmas this year and usher in a New Year, hopeful that if anything good can come of this horrible, terrible event, it will be that we can join together to make a real change in this world. That we can see each other as family and we can be kind to one another. That's really all it takes. Be kind. Love is all you need.
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