nothing....

even when you're not watching TV

the news gets through to you

and today it is the worst kind of news

it makes you feel sick and your blood runs cold

but your first reactions are getting dull and routine

in this country we hear of shootings all the time

just a couple of days ago there was a shooting at a mall on the West Coast

( I still don't know what happened there

 because I didn't watch or read anything...

like so many other things I don't read or watch)

you listen to the story on the news in the evening

you shed a tear

and then you go on...

another shooting in America

next....

that is exactly what happened today

I was finishing something that I had to do for number two son

which was frustrating because the phone company I was trying to deal with

doesn't show the number you're supposed to call to deal with them

you have to go looking for a number

I found one and did what I had to do...

then I did something else and another thing or three

and when I sat down at my computer and logged on

 the news showed up and said

school shooting in CT...

I told husband,  like I tell him it's going to rain...

then I read a little more and went to the TV

CNN was still gathering info and MS NBC was talking about guns and who should have them

in my opinion NO ONE....

I don't do Fox!!

I went back to what I was doing and a little later walked back  through the room
and saw

26 dead

18 children
 and 8 adults

gone just like that

18 little ones won't see Christmas ever again

Christmas will never be the same again for the parents or the children in the school or the teachers

 or the town

the policemen looked shattered

big huge men with big huge guns

crying in the parking lot 

of the school 

that this morning opened up and welcomed the kids

and planned on a day at school...

a few days before Christmas means they must have had parties to plan or gifts to make

secrets to keep

plans for the break that will come so soon

but now

nothing matters

nothing

except trying to explain to the little ones who made it out of 'Hell' that it won't happen again

and that the others have gone to'Heaven' to be with the 'angles'

and yes 'Santa' will still come

nothing matters 

nothing

but explaining to the parents 

why ...

we don't know who did this

we will soon

and his/her name will go down with all the other monsters who have done this so many times 

one worse than the one before

but this one

this one is one that should change everything

18 children died today

at the hands of a mad man

with a gun

don't care if he was as mad as a hatter

or ex-anything

or if he had lost his house and his car and his job

he did something you just don't do

you don't kill kids

you just don't...

 'we' do it

or the governments do it in our names in other countries and we call it 'war'

 we don't cry or yell about it

well, not very loudly we don't

and when it happens to OUR kids

it's the same thing

hours of mulling it over on TV

lots and lots and lots of talking

half on one side.... half on the other side

of gun control etc.

finding out every little detail of the monster

and then

it will go away

and the children will learn to live with it and the parents will cry themselves to sleep ( when it comes) for evermore

and no one will be able to tell anybody

why....

other than 

he could

because sane men and  mad men can buy guns

 and use them on a Friday morning at will

and end 26 lives 

just like that...26 people gone

I feel sick

 but more than that

sad, so sad

because nothing will change

nothing

poor babies...all of them.