The story is everywhere.
You flip from one channel to the other, and you see the broadcast reporters in the same place:
Newtown, Conn.
The questions are the same.
Why would someone shoot twenty children and six school staff? How could this happen?
As artists, we seek to discover a character’s motive for an action or crime. Mark Twain himself said reality is stranger than fiction.
Perhaps you thought about where you were Friday morning.
I was in a music classroom with twenty second graders singing Christmas songs. Twenty happy faces. Twenty singing voices.
Twenty children.
Words failed to come out of my mouth when I saw the news later Friday afternoon. A tear went down my face. I hugged my son when I picked him up from his morning school.
I felt his warm body and looked into his big blue eyes. He was mad because he had been sent to time out several times for throwing toys. On Friday, none of those actions mattered. My son was with me.
As a writer, many of my stories are written about children and families. Right now, I have no words.
Just the same questions as you.
What do we say?
What can we do?
How can we comfort?
Dedicated to all the families, victims and paramedics of the Sandy Hook Elementary School.
By Rebecca T. Dickinson
