Thoughts and Grieving: The Newtown, Connecticut Elementary School Shooting

I joke that Connecticut is one of my two home States. My Mom was born and raised there and I spent, if you add it up, about a third of my life there with friends and family. The horrific events today have broken my heart.

We in Binghamton can relate all too well. A few months before I moved here, a shooter took the lives of 13 beautiful people at the ACA. I refuse, by the way, to name shooters. Only the victims of these events deserve recognition.

I will never understand how a person can do these terrible acts. And today, nearly 30 people including 20 innocent children were senselessly killed. I, as I am sure you do too, have many questions.

Why would anyone kill children? Or anyone for that matter? How could this person have slipped through the cracks? And how did the world get from where we, as children, could go out by ourselves to basically having to put a barrier around kids to keep them safe?

This weekend, leading up to what should be a joyous time of the year, will be a weekend of prayers and mourning and shock. For the lost and their families, for the loss of innocence in our society, and surely for the memories of three years ago that this dredges up.

The one thing I thought was how to tell our children about this if they ask. Well, it should be without bitterness. And, I believe, and explanation that some people are very sick, but there are many good people in the world.

I hope that, finally, mental heath care will be considered as important as medical care and not shoved under the rug. As I write this, it appears that the shooter went to his Mother's house and killed her then went to his Father's house and killed him before heading to Sandy Hook Elementary. He was a sick, sick man who should have been in treatment.

My beloved Connecticut and beyond has been wounded and I hope we can all heal with support.