And yet. . .
I can smell the sweetness of their freshly washed hair. I can feel the softness of their smooth, young skin. I can feel the wiggle of their first loose tooth. I can see their beds filled with stuffed animals. I can see their artwork hanging on their kitchen walls. I can hear them singing silly songs in the backseats of their cars. I can see their excitement when their favorite football player scores a touchdown. I can remember their tears when they fell and scraped their knee or lost a favorite toy. I can see them in their Daisy Scout tunics and tee ball t-shirts giggling with friends when they should be paying attention. I can see their classroom with the alphabet above the smart board, the Christmas tree that they and their classmates decorated with their teachers. I can hear their teachers praising them for a job well done, placing a sticker on a perfect test, listening with loving patience as their students tell them stories of their families and pets and soccer games. I can smell the school hallways as the scents from the cafeteria and the day's lunch offerings waft through the air. I can see the working parents kiss their kids goodbye before they leave for work grateful that its Friday and they will have a weekend to spend with them. And the stay-at-home parents who are thankful for the couple hours they have that day to squeeze in some holiday shopping for their children.
As parents we sacrifice so much of who we once were to become who our children need us to be. And while parenting is hard and can sometimes feel overwhelming, the gifts of experiencing life as a parent far surpass any hardship that it might occasionally bring. The gift of being so deeply needed and so deeply loved by a human being is transformative. Our children become our light. They become our direction. They have shaped us into a new, better version of ourselves. Our lives have become intertwined with theirs in a way that we never understood until we became parents. And everything that we do for our children we do out of ferocious love for them and the unrelenting desire to keep them happy and healthy and safe. It is this love and desire that comes to define who we are.
Like many people, I spent the weekend drifting between deep, profound grief and intense rage. Feelings of peace are brief and fleeting. Because although what happened on Friday may have happened at a school in a town two hours from where I live, what happened is personal. Because those children are just like my children. Because those teachers are just like my children's teachers. Because those parents are just like me. Because the love that they feel for their children is the most powerful feeling that they have ever experienced and now they are left to cope with a gaping hole in their hearts and their lives from which they will probably never recover. And it is so unfair and infuriating and depressing and painful and surreal.
And yet. . .
When Robbie Parker, the father of sweet Emilie, spoke about losing his daughter he said that he isn't angry. He prayed for the shooter's family showing them genuine compassion in a time when everyone would understand if he couldn't. He expressed thanks for having been given the opportunity to be a father to a little girl who he described as beautiful and always smiling - that the world was a better place for having had her in it. I was so moved by his grace in that moment. The love and compassion that he displayed in that brief interview was probably the most beautiful tribute to his precious daughter's short yet meaningful life that could be given. I felt my faith restored by Robbie Parker because of his loving, gentle, peaceful words.
Each day I will pay tribute to the children and teachers who were killed in that school by being a source of love and kindness to all people. By being a a source of hope to the hopeless. By being a source of joy for the sad. By being a source of light for those who feel surrounded by darkness. This is my solemn promise to them. Because love will overcome all evil.
"And now these three things remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love." 1 Cor. 13:13
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