H/T to my fellow Kossack frosti for pointing me to the blog Farine: Crazy for Bread. As the title suggests, it's author, a native of France, is passionate about "bread, bread making, bread tasting, bread eating, bread blogs, bread books, bread pictures, bread everything." And this is what she wrote about for a long time.
Then, on December 14th 2012, she announced there would be no more bread posts.
"We just learned that our six-year old grandson Noah has been murdered in the Sandy Hook massacre this morning. Our hearts are bleeding for him, his parents, his twin sister, his other siblings. I have no words left."
Thankfully for all of us, she managed to find those words again. While there have been no more bread posts, there have been many about Noah-about what he was like in life, the impossible grief of losing him, and the legacy she is fighting to create in his memory. They can all be found in this section of her blog:
My Noah Posts
They are all worth reading, but one in particular stood out for me.
Many things have been said about Noah and his family tonight. And much has been said about guns, gun violence, and gun control in the wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
Instead of adding my voice to the chorus, below the fold, I am re-posting one of the aforementioned blog posts, in it's entirety. As far as I'm concerned, there is nothing more that can be said.
Noah Pozner: War and Peace
My father survived World War II. He died peacefully in a veterans' hospital in 2005. He was 92. His great-grandson Noah didn't survive first grade. He died in a hail of gunfire in his classroom in 2012. He was 6.
These facts are indisputable. Yet my mind can't seem to hold them together in coherent thought. We are taught those who went to war fought so that we could live free. I wasn't born in this country and have only been a citizen for twenty-five years. That may be the reason why I have a hard time understanding that, to some Americans, freedom means having the right to procure, own and learn to use weapons that can obliterate classes full of children in seconds.
I have heard the old canard that guns don't kill, people do. That is certainly true. Guns cannot walk themselves into a school, a movie theater or a shopping mall and pull their own triggers. At least they can't yet. Who knows about tomorrow? If we can fly drones, is it far-fetched to imagine a world where affordable robots could be armed and programmed to go and kill?
Thousands cannot have died or nearly starved to death in prisoner camps -as my father did- to protect the right of gun enthusiasts to own and use weapons that were not even invented in their lifetimes. They died or starved to protect the lives and freedom of their families and fellow citizens, including the right of little children to get an education without being afraid of "bad men" blasting their way into their schools and the rights of parents everywhere to see their children peacefully grow into responsible adults.
Gun people may be entrenched in their conviction that their right to any deadly weapon under the sun is God-given and shouldn't be tampered with. Because of the powerful interests that stand behind them and skillfully manipulate at least some of them, they are very vocal and their voices carry far and wide.
Many of them are parents though. Because of our shared humanity, I know that in private these fathers and mothers are thinking: "What if it had been my kid? Would I still feel that the right to own semi-automatic weapons is more sacred than the right of my child to his or her life?"
To them I say, take my grandson, take all twenty of Newtown slaughtered children, take all the kids who die from gunshots every year in our country and make them your own. They were real boys and girls, just like your sons and daughters. Before raising your voice to be heard, in Washington or elsewhere, please listen for theirs in your heart and think of your own kids. Make it personal. Believe me, there is nothing more personal than grieving for a murdered child.
Noah Pozner, in a photo taken by his aunt in April, 2012. Credit: www.farine-mc.com.