In the Wake of the Sandy Hook Massacre

Photo taken from The Suffolk Times
(suffolktimes.timesreview.com)

I didn´t hear about it until the day after. I had been so busy with  after-school crafts, laundry loads and dish washing, that I hadn´t had time to watch the news on Friday evening.

When I finally did get to reconnect with the world, I first got bits and pieces from my Facebook feed. Later I was able to watch a full news report from the U.S. At first, it was just to gather the facts. As I watched the broadcast again, it started to sink in somewhat.

Since then, the events in Newtown have stirred up 3 separate but related thoughts:

1. Do other non-American moms feel this as deeply as I do?

This morning I walked my son to school just like every weekday morning here in Spain....but today I couldn´t stop thinking what it must have been like for everyone in Sandy Hook. I know other Spanish parents are aware of what happened and are equally shocked....but do they feel it as personally as I do? Did they imagine, this morning, as I did? Are they STILL thinking about it? I would understand if they didn´t. It did happen halfway across the world in a different country, a different culture. And yet, I still wonder, are they still thinking about it to the degree that I am? I haven´t had the chance to really talk about it yet with other moms because the children are always present.

2. Have we as Americans felt the same intense grief and outrage for other tragedies NOT in our backyard?

While I cannot shake this horrendous tragedy, how many other horrendous tragedies have occurred throughout the world, crimes committed, and specifically against children, that I simply read as a headline and then moved on?

Even during the same Friday night reporting about the massacre in Sandy Hook, an FBI Profiler mentioned that in China 22 elementary school children and 1 adult were slashed and injured by a local resident man wielding a knife on the very same day the Sandy Hook shootings, Of course, there have been no fatalities, but this story totally got lost in the wake of our own tragedy.

Just today, there is news that 10 young girls in Afghanistan have just been just killed by a landmine. This is equally tragic and wrong (although tragedies can never really be compared. Each one is deeply sad and horrific in its own right)...but, I confess, that it just doesn´t get the same attention on my radar.

I also think of the countless adults and children that were systematically wiped out more than 500,000 men, women and children in 100 days in the Rwandan genocide in 1994.

3. Is gun-control the only issue? What role has mental illness played in other massacres in history?

Finally, not related to violence around the world, but related to some aspects of mental illness where violence can rear its ugly head in most unexpected ways against those who are closest....

Liza Long wrote a blog entry this past Saturday for the Blue Review called I Am Adam Lanza´s Mother. I consider her courageous and brave to face each day and now to share about her experiences in dealing with a son with mental illness. It also sheds light on the confusion and inexplicable violence that was unleashed at Sandy Hook Elementary School last Friday.

What role has mental illness played in previous public massacres like that of Sandy Hook? What can government do, what can individuals do to help address this important health issue? To give guidance and support to families? To provide funds to get the care that is truly needed?

While my ruminations will go on for several days, if not weeks, my memory of this very sad day will live on for years to come. May the Lord take the evil and sadness that resulted to move me to compassion and action in the future.