13

So today my family waited in line for hours and hours to pay our respects to a young boy who died too soon.

Again.

We went went to the calling hours with hundreds and hundreds of Newtown friends, students, teachers, families, coaches and neighbors for a 13 year old boy from my kid's 7th grade class who died "unexpectedly" at home. 13.

Just 13. Thirteen. 7th grade. Pollywogs and skateboards. Dyed hair and baseball. Comic books and cousins.

Just when we thought we had no tears left.

Found this TedTalks video by accident just this morning, and was introduced to poet Shane Koyczan.

Hoping you will watch it in honor of Ben, and perhaps share it with someone you know.

I've been busy.

Sorry for the absence, but I've been busy. 

Driving carpool, cooking casseroles, writing letters, making phone calls, crying, attending meetings, losing friends, working, making friends, mending broken hearts, lobbying congress, watching sports, writing more letters, crying, joining groups, quitting groups, hugging kids, visiting colleges, working, momming, driving.


Trying my best to be a worthy ambassador for Newtown every single day. 

Rinse, repeat.


Trying to figure out what to do next.

What we can possibly do to stop our horror from ever visiting your town. Or movie theater. Or mall. Or playground. Or college campus. Or church. Or first grade classrooms.

Where we go from here, in the shadow of such sadness, I'm not sure. But while I try to figure this new reality out, I plan to take you with me.

* * *
[I'm going to be posting a lot of content regarding reducing gun violence in our country. You can read that as "gun control." And you can unfollow. But you cannot tell me that what is going on today is acceptable under any circumstance. You cannot tell me Pro 2A means pro-unlimited, unrestricted, unaccountable access to firepower meant to kill as many people as possible as quickly as possible. Because I know first hand where that unlimited power leads to, and we need to stop this before you know as well.]

Channeling Grief into Advocacy, Sort of

I would like to post regularly and share what is happening here in Newtown, but there just isn't enough time or energy to do that. I want to, but I've been muzzled: first by grief, then by fear, then by responsibility, then by trolls, then by frustration, then by friends, then by time.

When trying to find someplace to channel the grief, to get away from ... well ... me, I discovered a grass roots effort born at a kitchen table by two CT moms rocked by the Newtown massacre (more appropriate than tragedy) called March for Change, addressing the need for common sense gun laws. You think?

So I volunteered, half raising my hand, and pulling it down again and again, to encourage those here in Newtown to come to Hartford to rally for common sense gun laws, if this might be something that would want to do. Or not. It's individual, and not everyone is ready. Most days, we're all just hanging on the best we can.

My only goal: represent Newtown. Make sure Newtown neighbors, families, and friends have the opportunity to attend this march – if they want to. Towns across the state have pledged to send buses (yes, buses of supporters), and I want very much for Newtown to have a powerful presence.

March for Change folks are completely organized, armed with incredible volunteers, linked to Connecticut Against Gun Violence and focused on the forest: the passion behind the commons sense gun legislation.

My focus? The trees. The trees right here in town. And to completely honest – most days, just the trees in my very own yard. Maybe that's selfish, but that's just the way it is.

I want March for Change to, as their brilliant tag line represents: change the conversation, change the culture, change the laws. I really do. But it's all I can do to get my own family on a bus next Friday, go to Hartford and beg like those tiny whos on a fluff ball in Horton Hears a Who! together, united, shouting in quiet whispers:

... we're here ... we're here. 

And we're hurting. 

Please. Please hear us. 

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Daniel Barden. Don't forget this face.

I'm having a hard time getting back to life: attending multiple wakes and funerals for dead 7 year olds and dead moms tend to do that. Harsh words, but it's a harsh world we're left with.

I'm left speechless. And ambitionless. And aimless. And well, just tired.

I sleep a lot these days – soundly, like when I was pregnant and just need to shut my eyes for 10 minutes then zonk out into a deadman's sleep .... oops. Probably shouldn't say that. There's lots of things I can't say anymore, and even more I can't hear.

Thoughtful emails, texts and calls from colleagues that hope I wasn't affected directly by the tragedy in Newtown. Folks who only know me virtually, and only know Newtown from the news.

They don't know that our high schoolers taught many of the dead kids to swim, cheering and coaching these little guys and sneaking them candy for breakfast. That our boy has multiple friends with dead siblings. That my college kid, so far from home, desperately searched for news about special needs kids she mentored, families she knows and loves. And that Kid3, a self-assured, strong, brilliant sophomore in high school, sleeps in our bed, so very, very sad and confused, unable to articulate why.

Every Newtown household knows somebody. If we didn't coach, teach, babysit, carpool, play, or clip out articles from the Bee, our hometown weekly, about the successes and accomplishments of these families and leave them gingerly in a mailbox or under a windshield wiper, then our friends and neighbors did. It's just that kind of town. Or it was.

The bottom line is: we are not directly affected. Unless you were one of the 28, and yes there were 28 people shot dead that sad, sad day, you were not directly affected. Our families came home. Most of our brave teachers lived. But somehow, even though these kids were not my kids, and these teachers not our teachers, and these moms and cops and truck drivers and EMTs and firefighters and classroom aides are not the very same people invited to our very own backyard picnics, they are people who we have met at somebody else's barbecue.

Make no mistake about it: they were probably in your backyard too. Or on your lacrosse or soccer or baseball fields, or in your Christmas pageants or dance recitals, or wrestling or swim meets. In your classrooms. At your dinner table.

And now they're not.

And with that, we are all directly affected.

A Letter of Concern from a Mentally Ill Friend

I received many notes of support about the horror here in Newtown, and appreciate every single one. 

There is one more thoughtful and poignant than all the others, because of who it is from. Back in 2008 I took a 12 week NAMI family-to-family class for folks with family members suffering from mental illness, of which, I am one. One evening, a guy showed up to share his personal story with us, and afterwards, I wrote him a small note of appreciation, which he apparently kept all these years. Am sharing here:

Hurting in Newtown

The media is suffocating, clogging the roads and parking lots with bright lights and satellite dishes and polished professionals putting on too much makeup in their caravans before venturing out to stick a camera in our weary faces.

But I don't want them to go away.

Because as hard as it is to see my quiet sleepy town on the 24 hour news cycle, it is far far worse to turn on the television ... or twitter or facebook ... and not see it. To see life resume, with Christmas specials and NFL games and reality shows that in no way mirror the nightmare we who call Newtown home are living. I don't want people to think the hurting is over, because it's only just begun.

We can't change the channel. We can't resume regular scheduled programming. 

The memorials loom large on street corners, schools, firehouses, and churches. Tear stained faces sob from grocery store aisles. No one is merry and bright.

When you watch the news, you're seeing my friends, family, and neighbors. You see, I know these dead kids. I know these dead teachers. I know the survivors and first responders. We all do. It's why we live here: we made our home in a town where everybody knows everybody, and that happens here every day, and now on the darkest days. 

The texts and emails rolled in from afar ..."OMG! Newtown! Did you know anybody?"

This is Newtown. We know everybody.

We are connected, we are strong, and everyone who lives here knows we are never alone. But far too many of my friends and neighbors are quite distinctly separate now. They experienced a grief that I can't begin to fathom. My family came home.

I am used to juggling December with work and games and holiday concerts and shopping. I am not used to trying to fit so many funerals and wakes into such a short period of time, while trying desperately to reassure my kids and husband that everything is going to be okay. Because I am not so sure it is.

*I used to write this blog anonymously: small town, small state. No longer. Please read back thru to see a somewhat accurate, yet often snarky, picture of "before" ... before you all knew the place I love to call home: Newtown, Connecticut. 

Sparkly Lip Gloss and the F Bomb

Not quite yet.

Boy came got off the bus really, really happy, which hasn't been the case all year since apparently the 7th grade girls, or at least two of them, have decided he's cute.

Really, really cute.

Boy has been riding the bus to middle school for about a month now, a 6:27 am bus ride that the older, hairier high school kids insist be silent, because well, duh, it's 6:30 in the frickin' morning and these kids are tired.

But that doesn't stop two bubbly, very awake 7th grade girls from constantly babbling for the whole bus to hear, their undying affection for um, my kid.

Apparently my boy is a chick magnet. Whudda thunk it?

"There's your boyfriend Emma! There's Boy! 

Don't you just loooove Boy?" 

"Are you wearing sparkly lip gloss for Boy, Emma? 

"Boy, Emma's wearing sparkly lip gloss just for youuuuuuuu!"

It's relentless, I swear. Every day, a different story. It's How the World Turns, middle school edition.

Boy, I assure you, wants nothing to do with sparkly lip glossed girls, but he is very intrigued with the curly hair boy who plays lacrosse on the high school team and has the coolest sneakers EVER. "I mean like ever, Mom. They're the coolest EVER."

But sparkly lip gloss?

Not so much.

Enter Kid3 to the rescue. There's nothing like an ex-7th grade girl, now a lurking, somewhat gorgeous but I may be a tad biased, 5'10 honest-to-goodness HIGH SCHOOL girl to put on a cape and rescue her little brother.

Makes my heart all a'flutter. Look Rather Attractive Husband – they don't hate each other!

So when Kid3 was forced to ride the bus instead of being chauffeured by Kid2, (I'm-too-cool-to-take-the-bus-because-I'm-a-senior-even-though-gas-is-$4-a-gallon-and-I-drive-an-8-cylinder-pick-up), big little sister sprang into action.

note: Please read this with appropriate squealing, giggling, ooohing and ahhhing with girlspeak volume turned up to about 8 on an otherwise silent diesel engine school bus.

Setting: Crowded school bus filled with grades 7-12. Last stop, completely jammed bus. Budget yo'. Sophomore Kid3 is in the way back. In front of her, Sparkling Lip Gloss Girl Emma and Freckly Friend. Couple seats ahead, Boy squeezed in with Curly Hair High School Lacrosse Playing BoyMan.

Freckled Friend: "Therrrreeee he isssss! Your boyyyyyfriend Boy! He's soooooooo cute, doncha just think he's cuuuuute? Doncha wish you could sit with him?"

Sparkly Lip Gloss Girl: "Ooooooh! Boy's on the bus! Yaaayyy! Oooooh, Hiiiiiiiiii Boyyyyy. Hiiiiii!

Freckled Friend: "Emma likes you Boooyyyyyy. She reeeeeealllllly likes you!"

Freckled Friend: "Emmma, are you wearing sparkly lip gloss? Are you wearing sparkly lip gloss for Booooyyyyy?"

drumroll please:

Kid3: [leaning forward and folding her praying mantis frame up and over the seats, wedges her face nose-to-nose between the two teenybopper stalkers.

YOU GIRLS NEED TO SHUT THE FUCK UP. LIKE NOW.

Silence.

Curly Hair High School Lacrosse BoyMan: [Looking straight ahead, elbows jabs Boy]
Hey. She your sister?

Boy: Yep.

Curly Hair High School Lacrosse BoyMan: Thank her for me.

Why I Miss Commuting to Work

Working from home eliminates the need for commuting, or so one would think.

I ache for that commute time: that rubbernecking, traffic jammed, disabled car on the side of the road valuable me time.

Nothing but radio du jour, or book-on-tape, or simple silence to think. To figure stuff out. Time to mentally prep for your day, unravel on the way home, to aptly switch gears from home to work and back again.

Not so when you work from the comfort of your own home. 

The ability to think on the fly: to juggle work, copy, production, parent/teach conferences, doc appointments, cell phone, oil delivery, UPS, dogs barking, and the unthinkable: early dismissal from school or the godforsaken snow day, doesn't allow for the limited neurons to switch from mom mode to work mode on the fly.


Can you switch gears working at home? I thought I could, but know full well that I can't.

How do you do it, without screaming, usually to unsuspecting kid who just wants five seconds of eye contact, or a rather attractive husband who just wants you to read something real quick, or your beautiful teenagers who only grace you with their presence for such a brief moment that by the time you look up, they are long gone.

"SSSTOPPP ALREADY!!!"

"Gimme a friggin' break!"

 Just One SECONDDDD!"

"AGGGGGHHH! I'LL BE THERE IN A MINUTE!" 

Why do I do this to the folks I love the most?

I never put a client on hold, or speak to them with anything but forlorn adoration while I jump through the hoop no matter how high, what time, or where it is located. Is it the desperation of a paycheck, or the willingness to please (or is that the same)?


So I've instituted my own commute: I'm taking an hour every day: morning and night for to pre-game and post-game my work day. I'm hitting the gym in the am, or walking the walk, to mentally prep the brain for the day ahead, all while shrinking the ass.

And I'm punching out, literally, once game time starts. That means my kids swim meets, soccer games, concerts, homework, or college prep attack. No longer choreographing print runs from the soccer sidelines, or negotiating contracts from swim stands, or reviewing copy changes during halftime shows.

It's hard when you work from home: you're at work all the time, and can't stop the wheels from spinning, the ideas from generating, the to-do list from growing.

But I need that commute time. I desperately need that space between.

This isn't about miles-per-gallon, it's about energy per neuron. As I've gotten older, my neurons seem to be aging, and perhaps this cerebral computer is ready to crash if I don't start taking better care of it.

I'll let you know how it works.

If it works.

Taking Your Kid To College: Consider Yourself Warned (LTYM)

So remember a ways back when I wouldn't stop blabbing about the Listen To Your Mother show in NYC?

The audition, the casting, the prep, the wardrobe, the afterglow?

Did you begin to think it never really happened?

I did.

But here's the YouTube proof.

For the love of Darwin people, why didn't someone help me do my hair? Or tell me to slow down? Or speak louder? Or get a better bra?

Bus Stop Joy

School's back in session, and thousands of iPhones are capturing the magic milestones as little back packs, shiny new shoes, and fancy lead-based lunch boxes climb that big yellow bus. Tiny little fists heroically wave goodbye to the parents left behind.

And while tears are being shed, there are a few, brief moments of joy. Here's mine: