How many times have I grabbed for my laptop over this past week, only to being writing a blog post and then to cast it aside, for my words have lost their meaning and my feelings cannot be described adequately no matter the font or the intonation. What does a mother say about twenty lost children? Oftentimes when my own mother would hear of a tragedy, she would remind us that she regularly asks God to take her five minutes before He takes any of her children. She did not feel that she could live through that kind of loss. I understand her fear. Birthing children is like removing part of one's heart, sticking arms and legs on it, and trusting it to walk about the world unharmed, still beating, still a part of what gives a mother life. Yet I cannot live in fear for my children's safety. I have to believe that they are safe in order to keep breathing myself. I know that they know how deeply they are loved. I know that the twenty children lost in Connecticut knew that, too. And I know that, like mine, some of those kids were probably rushed out of the door in a harried fashion with cries of "we'll be late!" and "hurry up!" and that things were probably just so normal that morning, and that is what aches my heart he most. When I have mornings like that, I always think: "we'll do better tomorrow," because I believe that tomorrow will come. I cannot imagine a life with no tomorrows, no more chances, no more life.
I have set my alarm to awaken me at 6:25 a.m. PST tomorrow, five minutes before the national moment of silence for Newtown. I plan to spend those moments in quiet, meditative prayer, for the children, for their mothers, for their siblings and fathers and families and friends ... For the adults who lost their lives, including the shooter's mother, and for those in this country who are so ill that they could do this sort of thing. I will pray for peace. I will pray for an end to violence. I will pray for love to conquer hate. And I will pray for all of the tomorrows yet to come, that I will be patient and kind and loving and that I will not live in fear nor let my children do so. I will pray for the peacemakers. I will pray, because I can do that. I cannot go to Newtown and hug and hold people, which is what I am inclined to do. But I can hug and hold the people closest to me here and live for tomorrows that are better than these recent yesterdays. I can pray for that. I will carry on, trying to live a little better and love a little harder. I will welcome my tomorrows, cherish them, and try to make them signify something.
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The title of this blog post is from Macbeth's final soliloquy, which has been raging in my head for this past week. It is in response to hearing of Lady Macbeth's death, and some think that he shows some indifference toward her in this speech. I think not. I think that Macbeth is raging against the passage of time that he cannot stop, the do-over that he will not get. In any event, this is far from a fitting tribute to Newtown in many ways -- and yet, it reflects, I think, the outcry of a world with too much violence handled in too little time and costing too many lives. It is distress. It is what I feel, even while I hunger for peace. Here is the passage:
She should have died hereafter;
There would have been a time for such a word.
Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury
Signifying nothing. — Macbeth (Act 5, Scene 5, lines 17-28)
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