CNN made me cry - Sandy Hook Tragedy

Sandy Hook teddy bears - remembering...

Today as I sat watching CNN, for a second time in as many days, the broadcast made me cry. No matter where you live or what you do, the senselessness of this tragedy is so beyond anything any of us could have ever imagined. I watched as families, friends and well wishers consoled each other. I watched as the school principal's husband spoke about his wife, and with him being much older than her, how he had believed he would be leaving their home to her and their kids and grandkids to enjoy. "I did not think it would be me. I don't think I can do this" before he and her daughter broke down. The President's own reflections and emotion as he called each of the 20 names of the angels whom "God has called home".

But it was the faces of the kids, who would not enjoy Christmas, would not receive the presents they had asked Santa for, who would not see another Thanksgiving or Halloween or birthday.

I celebrated my own birthday this week and believe me, this is something I never take for granted. This thing called life. As I sat in my hotel room on Friday night, coming from a night out, I cried for these children who will never fulfil the potential so many would have seen in them, and who would never marvel at the life moments that they would have created, the experiences and triumphs, the heartbreak and failures, the joy, love and happiness of a life well lived. As I reflected on my own life's journey and thanked God for the blessing, I thought of these little faces and the life snuffed out from their bodies too soon. Little Ana Marquez-Greene whose singing in a home movie, would now be limited to that movie. Or Jack Pinto who was a star wrestler, even at 6 years old.

Six years old. It is incomprehensible to me that someone would be so evil or so incapable of knowing better, for whatever reason, as to look into the eyes of the innocent and pull the trigger, ending a life before it had even started. I listen to friends - parents themselves - who tweeted and updated today that they held their kids tight before sending them off to school, not with the usual heavy heart of temporary separation, but with a heart filled with dread and terror. Is this the way we want to live? Is this the life we have promised our children? As a non-parent, is this a world I want to bring children into?

I pray for these families - both of the children, and the 6 amazing women who gave their lives to ensure dozens more could go home to their mothers and fathers and sisters and brothers. And for the remaining members of the perpertrator's family - victims themselves. The world mourns with Newtown. Our hearts break with this community, and my own prayers are with each and every family, and for the world we live in.

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