Today, several news media sources began writing about Newtown and elsewhere for the first time in a different way - that with today being Christmas, many found time to smile and find joy in the season.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/...
"We're getting through this with our faith and our prayer. People are smiling a little more now," said John Barry, owner of an information technology staffing company. "The week was so horrible. Now it's time to celebrate Christmas."
There will be those who have endured the shock and who are now picking up the pieces. There will be families who are keeping it together for their friends. Those who weren't directly touched by this travesty. But for the families of so many children, and for their extended families, tonight they get the reminder again of presents that sit unopened and the joyous smiles and laughs they won't get to appreciate again.
It's part of the healing process for so many of us. We go through several phases of mourning, and at a point, we have to move on. For people who are victims of crime, one of the first things a counselor will tell you is that the world will never be the same, but you'll have to learn to adjust to the world you live in now.
That's the problem with attention spans, though. For the victims and their families, the universe really never is the same. Never. Not in a week. Not in two weeks. Not in years. Not for the rest of their lives. Whether they move past it or not, whether they dwell on it or not, the people who are victims of crime find that it's never too far from their thoughts.
Trust me, you want to.. you really want to move past it. You find ways to get there. Maybe you don't think about it as often. It's not as fresh in your mind as it was once. But it doesn't mean you don't still think about it.
It doesn't even take that big of a reminder.. but today, too many families are being hit with the reminder that a loved one is gone. For them, "moving on" and smiling a bit more is really a nice way to say to everyone else: it's OK. Maybe you can't help me any longer, the damage is done.. and I have to deal with the results.
But it doesn't mean that it's literally "OK".
And it's not just Newtown. On the 22nd, a teenage boy, standing across the street from a church holding a Christmas service was gunned down in cold blood, left to bleed to death on a sidewalk.
http://www.minbcnews.com/...
Two firefighters in a high risk job who find themselves shot and killed on the job on Christmas Eve.
http://news.blogs.cnn.com/...
Four dead in a Pennsylvania shooting.
http://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/...
A 2 year old dead at the hands of a family member's gun in an accident.
http://www.wrcbtv.com/...
And so many more cases..
A parent, family and friends will have him in their thoughts today, reminded of how they wanted today to go.. the laughs, smiles, jokes, hugs. Maybe even a fight or two about who's team was better.
Tonight, families in Aurora, Colorado will sit at home and celebrate their first Christmas without a family member they loved.
"Don't you remember how much they loved this pie?"
Every moment, months later will be a fresh reminder of how their world is different because someone they loved isn't there.
In 2011, there were 31,347 firearm deaths. There will be even more this year. For most of those families, this is the second Christmas without a loved one. Their first full year without someone they know coming home and being with them.
And while they aren't news any more, it doesn't make the pain and suffering any less. It doesn't mean that they can't stop thinking about the night they received the news that someone they loved would never be with them. That they don't look at the tree and remember a small child, gunned down in a driveway for just being there.
We love the stories of "People moving on, finding a way to live". We like them because it frees us of the responsibility of caring any more. We can say "ok, they've moved on.." wash our hands and live our lives.
A few years ago, I met a woman who had been through a terrible situation. She came to talk because it happened to her years before, and she broke down at a thanksgiving dinner crying because in that moment, all she could think of was how horrible it was; she couldn't stop thinking about it. A family member (by marriage) turned to her and said: "That's been so long ago, let it go, stop being the victim"
It's a great phrase we like to pass around. Boo-hoo, they say, it's been five years. Ten years. Twenty Years. Fifty Years.
No matter how far away you get from an act of violence, whether it took the life of a friend or a loved one or whether it seriously changed your life through injury or harm, you never say "well, that's forgotten".
The best you do is to say: I am "OK" and you find a new way to live in the world.
Today though, for the families of the 188, the people who have died in the Newtown Massacre and those who have died by a gun since then, it's too soon. For families and friends of those who died in Aurora, asking them to move on isn't something that is within many of them.
Tonight, parents are staring at trees that just a few weeks ago were full of gifts and joy they'd share with their family. Tonight, they will go to sleep again, reminded that they won't hear a daughter laugh; they won't watch their son pick up two play cars and play smash-em-up. They won't be yelling "Will someone pick up their toys!" No scolding of "You should try your grandmother's casserole, I don't care how much you dislike carrots.."
Parents of victims all over the country are thinking about all the conversations they wish they were having, right now.
And next year, they'll be reminded that if their child was alive, this is the Christmas I wish they would have.
In 10 years, they will think: this is the Prom my daughter or son is missing.
In 20 years, they will think: I wonder what my child's children would look like.
In 40 years, they will turn to a friend and tell them that one of their greatest fears in old age is forgetting what their daughter looked like when she'd smile and hug her doll.
This Christmas for far too many people is a Christmas that begins their journey into a universe that doesn't have a loved one in it.
For victims of violent crime and for the living, today marks another holiday where they ask themselves for a different gift: a desire to forget, to stop being tormented by memories of something terrible.
Eventually, someone will say to them: that was five years ago, ten years ago, twenty years ago.. can't you move on? Stop being the victim!
The problem is, for the parents and friends, they can't stop being something. Because for the rest of their lives, it will be part of who they are, the same way that a person can't stop being who they are.
But people will forget. Move on. This Christmas no one is talking about the families of the victims or Aurora, who won't have children home. We aren't discussing the families of the people in Columbine. Or Fort Hood. But all of those parents, friends, and loved ones are celebrating Christmas at home tonight, and I will guarantee you, at least once - and far more often than anyone can even imagine - the thought will race across their mind "wouldn't this be different if X was here to celebrate with us?"
But they aren't.
And they won't ever be again.
And this is the universe they live in.
And the fear for so many is: please, don't let me be the next person who has their universe changed like that.
We think it because we can't fathom it.
Not now.
Not ten years from now
Not twenty years from now
Not ever.