The new year is less than a week away. I always love the new year. Heck, I love a new month. To me there is something so exhilerating about tearing off the old calendar page and revealing a fresh new page ready to be filled with limitless opportunities, events, and learning. That clean calendar month is the joy of possibility-ready to be whatever I make of it.
This year, however, I don't seem to have the same level of excitement that I usually do. I can find little delight in putting up the 2013 calendar when the news is still full of stories of parents who are burying their children in Newton and the world as a whole seems to have been turned upside down. How can I take joy in the new year, when so many people who have every right to be here celebrating aren't?
I had originally planned to write this post about stress management. Last week I even started mapping it out-no procrastination for me. I was going to talk about how to deal with December's usual anxiety-causing events such as office dynamics, Christmas shopping, traveling, and a six-year-old who counts down the days until Santa comes with an increasing cacophony of yells, singing, and cheering (somebody else out there can relate, right?)? Yet, I can't bring myself to write it. All of that seems so insignificant. How can I write about holiday stress when so many people would be grateful to have the worries I have?
Yesterday I got caught up in an online debate about gun control-specifically whether teachers should be aremed in order to better protect their students. I was (and am) adamant in my belief that this is more harmful than helpful. It teaches our children to fear. To fear strangers. To fear of being harmed. To fear the world at large. I don't know what the answer is, but I know in my heart that this is not it. I subscribe to the Free Range parenting beliefs (www.freerangekids.com) of letting my child be a child. I want her to play outside, to run from house to house, to talk to strangers, to be independent and confident in herself. For many days the media have carried the stories of hero teachers, principals, aides, and other staff. People who put themselves in harms way to save their students. No one can deny the bravery and heroism that these fine people showed in the most tragic of circumstances, but there were some unsung heroes that day as well. Children who helped each other. Who ran past the gunman and escaped. Who hid quietly waiting to be rescued (no easy feat as anyone with small children can tell you). Undoubtably these children will be scarred for the rest of their lives, as I believe the American people will be, but they are heroes. They faced the worst mankind has to offer and met that trial with courage and aptitude which is more than just the survival instinct.
And in this, there is hope. As we often do when there is a national tragedy, the American people came together on Friday. We put aside our political, religious, and moral beliefs to stand with the residents of Newtown, to grieve with them, to love with them. Thoughts and prayers as well as gifts and volunteers from around the country and around the world are with the mourners. America grieves as one for the lives and the innocence lost on Friday.
In fact, it seems that the residents have too much support and would prefer that we find a way to honor the victims without intruding on this small town. I cannot solve the gun control issue, but I believe I have a solution for this. For those of us who feel the need to do something, let us pledge to live 2013 for those who will not be a part of it. Let us love one another, be good to our neighbors, share our bounty with those who have less, and most importantly let us teach our children to do this as well. Let us not live in fear or allow our children to live in terror. Nor should we respond to this tragedy with fear, more violence, or the stockpiling of our own arsonal. Instead, we should live this year in such a way that when our grandchildren's grandchildren study this period in history they can say of America that we came together, putting aside our differences, and truly made this world a better place to be. Let us, though our actions, teach all the evil in this world that love can overcome even the most horrific of tragedies because I still believe it can.
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