It was April 20, 1999.
The customary midday rush of parents and students had finally slowed and the front office was quiet again. I relaxed into the afternoon lull. Through the wide wall of windows, I gazed out upon the balmy spring day. I absentmindedly watched the leaves of the great oak tree that stood guard over the school sway in the breeze; a million points of sunlight bounced from glossy leaves on low plants. The day, and everything in it, seemed to dance; nature had shrugged off the last vestiges of winter, and all its parts moved in an easy celebration of the summer that was soon to come.
But I was thinking of the fall. Student teaching and graduation were all that lay between me and my own classroom. The long days of working full-time in the school system as a paraprofessional while also attending college at night were soon to be traded for the official title of teacher. Desk arrangements, students, lesson plans, and making a difference are what I envisioned as I looked through the picture windows.
This phrase broke through the white noise of the television and snapped me out of my reverie. I rose from the desk to turn up the television.
Haunting images flooded the screen. Aerial views of children climbing out of windows and running to safety. SWAT team members with rifles and full body armor. Terrified parents. Flashing lights. Tears commingled with blood on frightened faces. I stood there in a stupor, my mind not wanting to make sense of what I was seeing and hearing.
The phone rang. In a daze and unable to tear my eyes away from the television, I walked backwards and felt around for the phone until I found the receiver.
I’d barely put the phone to my ear before I heard Frank blurt out, “Are you watching the news?” I said that I was, and we watched together for a while in a stunned silence.
“How so?” I asked. The death toll in the news crawl climbed by 5.
My tears fell in place of the storm that should have been, but wasn’t.
Though it’s winter, the day is bright and warm. It feels like a farce. It should be as cold and dark as I feel now. The chill in my body has nothing to do with the weather, and the mismatch between the two is jarring. It feels unfair, somehow.
My eighth graders are laughing and hyper and are distracted in that telltale way of an impending holiday break. Part of me wants to scream at them (DON’T YOU KNOW THAT CHILDREN WHO COULD HAVE BEEN YOU ARE DEAD TODAY?), but I don’t, because they weren’t.
Instead, I take special care, in some small way, to let each of them know that I love them. A soft hand on a shoulder. A bigger smile when I greet them at the door. A hearty laugh at a joke that really wasn’t all that funny. An extra nudge of encouragement. A blind eye turned at a thrown wad of paper.
I know what this chill is. It’s fear. A dormant serpent awaken by tragedy, fear has unfurled itself and is slithering paths of ice across my arms. It is standing on alert and making itself known, reminding (warning?) us with a flare and a hiss that at any moment, all that we hold dear to us could be taken away.
It could be when we least expect it, without the portentous warning of a roll of thunder or heavy, iron-laden clouds.
It could be on a bright and clear day.
My heart and prayers are with the children, staff, parents, and community of Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
beautiful post. thank you for sharing. I can’t imagine what grief and heartache all of those families are going through today.
Beautifully said by a beautiful soul. <3 I weep today for the families. I weep for a world where such mental illness exists that humans can inflict this on each other.
All I can think is WHY WHY WHY? I am so sad.
I have no words except thank you.
I heard the news on the way to a field trip. My heart sank…another shooting. It’s not something I want to happen anywhere, much less at a school.
My heart aches for the entire community.
It’s a great gift to be able to write so beautifully about things that are so horrible. It’s my hope and prayer that your gift will help bring the change that is so desperately needed.
So poignantly put. I haven’t been able to dislodge the lump in my throat … I hugged my children so tightly tonight that it was hard for them to breathe. We can’t bring back the ones who were taken; all we can do is love the ones who are here, and try not to let the serpent paralyze us out of living.
Thank you…my heart has been breaking over this and you have captured everything I feel so perfectly.
I wish I had some way to offer comfort to the parents, families, friends and neighbors.
Such a beautiful post by a great teacher. You are so made for your job. Your instincts show it.
In 1999, I was teaching in my own high school classroom when we heard about Columbine. I had a one year old son in daycare ten miles away and I was pregnant with my daughter. There were whispers in the faculty lounge about copy-cats. I swallowed my fear. I didn’t tell my husband because it seemed so unlikely that I’d be in danger.
His parents and he apologized during a formal meeting later that week. They explained that his doctors had been trying to adjust his meds and obviously the experiment had failed. Obviously. This time, I told my husband I was afraid. But what else could I do but continue teaching? It was my job.
Last Friday, I sat watching the news. Stunned. Crying. On a leave of absence from teaching. I wanted to pull my kids from their schools and sit with them, wrap my arms around them, make sure we were all safe. But I didn’t. I let them finish their days and hugged them each tightly when I picked them up that afternoon.
It doesn’t matter that the likelihood remains slim. Minuscule, even.
This was an interesting look at a very bad situation. Thank you for sharing your perspective.
Sadly, we all remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard about these tragic shootings.
These senseless tragedies are becoming far too much. Thank you for sharing your reflections.
Thanks for this. My own “bright & clear day” was 9-11-01… the parallels were just a little too close for comfort. I too work in a skyscraper (with my dh on a trading floor near the top) in the financial district of our city. Dh can see small jets flying by every day, en route to the nearby island airport.