A Mothers Promise

The gravity of the moment that comes with holding your child for the first time -- looking into their eyes, rocking them to sleep, allowing their breath to fill your heart, marveling at how nature has taken a part of you and a part of your husband to create someone uniquely beautiful -- the seriousness of that moment, is only eclipsed by the moment you discover your little boy or little girl is forever gone, just a few hours after watching them wave back at you from the school bus window. 

Mothers are not supposed to outlive their children. It is against the natural order of things. Having endured tragedy of a particularly cruel and violent sort less than five months ago, we continue to live in a state of shock and horror. But through our pain, we are trying to gain some perspective. 

In the weeks and months after the December 14th shooting at Newtown, we clung to every picture, video, article of clothing -- the Superman shirt he practically lived in, her favorite flower headband, his proud Cub Scout uniform, the T-shirt he wore when he sang "Mr. Golden Sun" in front of an entire restaurant -- any shred of physical evidence of our children's time on earth. It is a rare minute when their loss isn't ever-present. Our children fill our dreams. We speak to them in the hopes they can hear us in the heavens. We have our own moments of grief and guilt where we question whether or not we treasured every precious second with our sons and daughters. 

We see the deep mourning in our husbands' eyes, as they do their best to hold us up. We feel the confusion that interrupts our children's daily routines as they wrestle with the violence that cut short the life of their brother or sister. We feel it in the hearts of an astonishing community and country that has wrapped its arms around us in our time of need. There are days when things seem normal, and then something as trivial as a kitchen appliance breaking sends us sputtering. 

We are constantly asked, "How do you go on?" The answer lies in the promise we made to our children when they were born, and perhaps more importantly, the promise we made when they were so senselessly taken from us. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jackie-barden/sandy-hook-moms-gun-violence_b_3239946.html