Friday, I spent a chunk of my day as a parent volunteer at
my son’s school’s annual Holiday Shoppe, helping kids in grades K-5 choose
gifts for their loved ones--innocent, touching, thoughtful and sometimes
humorous purchases; there are lots of grandpas out there getting whoopee
cushions for Christmas this year. The
scene was a jarring juxtaposition to the news being brought to the parents via text
messages and smartphone browsers, discussed in hushed voices in the gym’s
corners away from student ears.
As a parent, I an devastated at the news of any child being
hurt. It’s the reason I’ve been gently
but strongly steered away from shows like Criminal
Minds and Law and Order SVU. My brain puts Will’s face on each kid, and
that’s hard to take. I would like to
think that it gets easier as your child gets older, but I’m not sure that’s
true. I believe my mom looks at those
same stories and sees the face of grade-schooler me.
I remember the morning after the Station nightclub fire in
Providence. My mom and I were working in
the same office at the time, and I was pregnant but didn’t know it yet. I just thought I was fighting off the
flu. Exhausted and worn out, I’d gone to
bed early the night before and hadn’t turned on the news in my drive to
work. When I walked into the office, my
mom stood up from her computer, ran to the door, threw her arms around me and
said, “I am SO MAD at you!” When I was
finally able to extract myself from her arms, I asked her why. She said, “for all those nights that you were
out and I didn’t know it and something could have happened to you and I
wouldn’t know until it was too late.” I
was 33.
Now I have my own child, and I understand that hug. Will is my everything, and the Mama Lion in
me wants to protect him from anything bad the world might throw his way. It’s impossible, though. Will has ADHD, Dyslexia and Sensory
Processing Disorder. Each day is a mental
balancing act . And days like
Friday—well, they bring on the flying trapeze.
With no safety net.
As the investigation continues, a picture slowly starts to
emerge of the 20-year-old boy who did the unthinkable. One early report said that he had some kind
of learning disability and/or behavior disorder. Neighbors talk about how he was a quiet kid
who kept to himself. I listen and hold
my breath.
As the parent of a child who struggles, I watch and desperately
hope for the magic answer that explains what
brings someone to such a horrible place in his own head. Because before this boy became the
vacant-stared “shooter” on the news, he was just a boy. He was a boy with a struggle. And as parents of children who struggle, we
desperately watch and hope for a clue, an inkling—a map to show the right turn
we can help our own children take where this boy turned left. Of course, there isn’t one. Even with every profiler and psychology
expert and sociology expert in existence filling the airwaves, there is no
magic answer to tell us, “this is how you keep your child from going
here.” Because if there were, Nancy
Lanza would certainly have taken it.
And yet, I still watch and hug my own child tight as I hope
and pray that his life is never touched—from any angle—by the horror I see on
the faces of the families left behind.
