So Sorry.

I keep looking at the Christmas presents under my tree and I keep wondering what they will do with theirs, those parents’ whose children died yesterday. I think about their houses all trussed up and decorated into a wintry fairyland. I keep thinking about the reminder it must be. Presents wrapped, stockings stuffed and gifts hidden in closets waiting for Santa to show. I can’t help but feel that I would just throw everything out. You see I live on top of this gloriously annoying hill that sits at about a 45-degree angle. It’s difficult to navigate some days but on this day I feel that I would be thankful for that. I would simply throw the tree down the front steps and watch it crunch and tumble it’s way to the street. The nativity, the angels, the little ceramic houses built into a white fairy tale Christmas that we never see in this warm weather. Then the presents would go. One by one. What else would I do with them? I couldn’t return them. I would feel as though I was betraying my sweet little one, getting money back for the gifts I so carefully planned out. The gifts they have squealed and begged for since July. MAYBE, just MAYBE I could give them away but I’m not sure I could pull myself together enough to take them anywhere. To pack them into my car, to drive somewhere or even to think about other sweet little faces that I don’t know opening presents that were for my little boy. And that Elf, that stupid elf that I moved around my house. Carefully planning what mischief he would be in tonight. I might cut him to pieces. I might burn him in a woodpile. But I know I would hate him.

Then I think some more and I wonder if I would even be out of bed yet. It is possible that I would simply curse anyone who peaked their head into my bedroom door. I would lay in bed demanding that the world stop spinning. That the world stops moving on. I would swing between a white hot anger that burned into my throat from the depth of my belly to simple cold, gracefully numbing, empty despair. I would squeeze my eyes shut so tightly dots would appear when I opened them. I would beg my tears exhaust me so I can sleep back into blissfully peaceful nothing sleep.

Perhaps my husband, my mother, my sister would pull from bed. Maybe they could steer me through today. The details that I have always cursed because I have always hated details. But these details I would curse and hate even more. These details would have everything to do with putting that little body that I grew inside of me, that I kissed, nursed, healed, groomed, cleaned, and tried to squeeze every last ounce of warm dirty child smell from, away from me forever. I couldn’t say bury. I don’t know that I could make any of those details. Flowers, music, dates, times, newspaper announcements, handouts, pastors, prayers, caskets, locations, churches, outfits. It simply makes my stomach turn. It makes me want to throw up. It makes me want to crawl back into bed. No. Just no.

A hundred scenes run through my head. A hundred possible reactions. A million ways to get through it, or not. All I am certain of sitting in my living room a thousand miles away from this shooting is there is little to nothing I can do for these families. I want to hug them. I want to make them hot tea and tell them it is okay to stay in bed today. And tomorrow. It’s okay if you want to throw everything away. No you aren’t crazy for feeling that way. Be angry, be ragefully so. Let the heat in your neck reach up and tingle your ears, let it clench your fist, let it take over your voice and just scream until you can’t anymore. Tell God you can’t believe Him. Can’t believe that he would betray you in such a way. That’s okay too. Even he understands. He understands much better than I do or I can. He gave you the ability to feel all of those things so you can react. So you can get through. I don’t know what I would do even if I sit and imagine for hours.

I don’t know half of how I would feel or half of what I would do. I do know that I am so incredibly sorry. That my heart twists in my chest, my eyes burn, my mind screams and I hate this world when I think about those families. I wish I could pack away their Christmas trees. Pull down their lights. Put their houses back to right, back to normal. I wish I could cook and clean for them. I wish I could make the world stop turning. That new televisions shows wouldn’t air, new news stories wouldn’t surface because everything stopped for them. It hasn’t. It won’t. But I wish for just a day or two it would. That people would forget about their arguments about gun control, mental health, broken systems, broken people, and a broken world because today it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t help. It doesn’t stop what has already happened. Today I would just want to be left alone. I would want the world to forget about me because I want to forget about it. I just want to feel, to get lost, to disappear, to die, to waste away. To just sleep because that’s the only place I can pretend that yesterday didn’t happen.

I’m sorry that I can’t help. That I can’t make it better. I’m just so so sorry.