Funerals Begin in Newtown, School Resumes around the country

Newtown CT we are with you.

Two of the children will be buried this afternoon, as the little town of Newtown has sent children back to school and parents are standing in the middle of grief/shock/trauma.

6 year old's

Jack Pinto and Noah Pozner

will be the first of the many who are buried on this Monday afternoon.

We have heard, watched the inter-faith service last night or heard of it.

The high school so filled with people that some were turned away. The ever growing tributes and candles along with teddy bears and things that people were drawn to leave there in memory of this slaughter of the most precious children and their young educators in a safe school setting. In a community of 22,000 in New England. A place where it seems everyone knows most everyone, their kids connected, parents connected, all who participate in the others days and activities and wonders.

All just living their lives and in anticipation of the snow and holidays that are at hand.

A service of clergy each with their own message and their own pain as they took the stage with each step measured and each step pain filled, each breath labored hoping that they would be able to be the messenger of the Great Spirit, of God to provide solace and hope to those there.

Our President sat with such sorrow in his eyes, his body as he listened as he had been with families, even as he had been criticized by some for coming to this community at all.

I'm glad he went, he spoke for the Nation in reassuring so many that we stand with them now, our hearts broken for them and that we are together in this.
The town continues to have people just show up, people to feel the pain, to share in grief unimagined, to bring teddy bears, hugs, dogs that comfort, psychologists, experts in the field of sorrow too.
Westboro Baptist Church Hate is planning to come and picket and once again rear their ugly heads.
A call has been screamed to Veterans to Bikers to protect the outskirts of town and protect the fragile and wounded there of the heart, to shield them from hate mongers that breed on the innocent and the hurting.
Residents have asked so kindly please 
STAY HOME
we need to be together, we need the parking, we need to be together.
What part of that is hard for people to understand.
Leave them alone please.
Let the helicopters stop hovering and further traumatizing the residents there with the noise, the lights, cameras and people ringing the doorbells and wanting to interview the children.
      

Their children are our children, we have a responsibility to our children to all the children along with each other.

Today many returned to school, and across the country security is tight across the lands and in school systems.

Nerves are raw it seems; we fear for copy cat attempts and those who want 4 minutes of fame and senseless acts that can devastate and kill the innocent.

I applaud those in Newtown who sent their kids back to school today. I'm not sure that I could have... After all it is almost time to be out of school for the holidays, for Christmas break...

Yet at the same time, it is the children who will be glad for the return in most cases, glad to be with their friends, and the joyous noise they will make. Glad to not hear hushed tones in homes and the tears that are hidden from their sight, but those are the same tears that they see and wonder why they do not understand or are not being told everything that they can or cannot understand.

They may be wondering what in the world are all these candles burning for, why are there memorials in the streets everywhere, and why am I being hugged so much?

Anderson Cooper has done an outstanding job in his coverage of all this, he has been respectful, honorable, and the newcasters with him are suffering such pain through their lens of coverage.

In a community that has asked for tourists and well meaning people to please stay at home, many have showed up, they just want to see and be there to offer support.

That room last night had them there, folks who maybe took seats that resulted in the community being turned away who needed to be there.

It is hard to understand when Newtown says please do not come, and yet so many come.

Why is it that people are not listening?

Once again proving that we have to be certain and to think,

"whose needs are we tending to in times like this.."

We heard a newscaster give information on the stages of grief as he spoke of those who live there, as he spoke of Emilie's dad speaking live on her little life. He said it was remarkable that he had achieved "acceptance" so quickly and so many others seemed to have as well.

Many are talking too quickly, with misinformation of these recent events; and events that are secondary to horrible tragedy and trauma. It took remarkable courage for this father to speak; he spoke to the group so that he would not have to have his doorbell blow up again and again. He spoke from a man's heart that is now numbed by trauma, by tragedy about his baby, and yet he spoke.

He has not "accepted this" as one who works through the horror of this; he was numb... He is devastated as is each and every other person in that community. He just happened to be articulate and able to stand and speak about his child from a place of traumatized love.  He will go through phases and stages;

He will get angry... he will accept the reality that his child has been killed, and he will go through denying that this could have happened and bargain with God to please take him rather than that precious little girl, he will circle and cycle and go round and round in the stages and phases. But make no mistake, he is with a whole community now standing in hell as those funerals begin and reality begins to set in and he looks into the eyes of his other children finding ways to explain that Emilie will not be coming back home to them again.

...

Some will want to take down decorations, some will want privacy, some will need and want to gather with others, to let the children laugh and play. Most will attend funerals and honorings, while so many more will soon dig deep to remember that it is Christmas, Hanukkah has just ended, and they will find the courage to move one foot in front of the other.

They will find what they need to talk to the children, to reassure them the bad guy is dead; they will find a way to assure them that there are more good people than bad people in the world and to hold onto each other and love each other through this knowing that the country is with them, that people all over the world are holding them up, sending them energy to heal, one breath at a time, one step at a time.

And that soon those who do not live in Newtwon CT, will have the insight to go to their own lives and their own homes; to their own stories, their own holidays, their own.

...

Call to 

Compassion, Kindness, Caring

 all over the land

Blessings to all on this Monday

Walk in Beauty

DRSES