<p>Out of the blue, I got a holiday card from one of my son’s favorite high school teachers yesterday and realized that I’d been thinking of his former teachers and their safety since this happened. This guy would certainly be someone who would do anything to protect his students. He’d bring in their favorite desserts on their birthdays. He’d let them eat lunch in his classroom if they didn’t feel comfortable in the cafeteria. We can’t do enough to appreciate our teachers.</p>
<p>docT I am so, so sorry to hear about your coworker’s child. :(</p>
<p>I, too, have been crying these past few days. It’s so incredibly heartbreaking, horrifying. I can’t even talk to people about it because I start crying. Seeing all those little Christmas memorial trees, the little memorial angels, the funerals. I just seems so unreal, and then you realize it is absolutely real. It is just incredibly heartwrenching. (</p>
<p>Thank you jym626 for your post. I am very sad DocT to hear about your coworker’s child. How horrifying to hear. </p>
<p>Last Friday I was busy and then I was watching the TV coverage about this tragedy. I did not see DocT post about his coworker.</p>
<p>MODERATOR’S NOTE:</p>
<p>It’s important to allow people to express how they’re feeling about this tragedy. Please stay on topic, however - I deleted posts about gun control and our mental health system. The other thread on this topic had to be closed, and I’d like this one to stay open.</p>
<p>Please keep in mind that CC is NOT a debating society. There are many other places on the internet for that.</p>
<p>Thanks!</p>
<p>[school</a> help: Just passing this on, a simple request from the teachers at Sandy Hook Elementary School: - Help.com](<a href=“http://help.com/post/573108-just-passing-this-on-a-simple-requ]school”>http://help.com/post/573108-just-passing-this-on-a-simple-requ)</p>
<p>Teachers from SandyHook are asking for handprints to hang in their new school, there’s an address provided. I will say that I’ve not had ample time to fact-check this but it seems to be authentic.</p>
<p>I totally agree that this should be a thread for support and emoting, and that we should do our best to stay on this topic.</p>
<p>** and thank you for providing a place where this can be done. Also thank you to whoever said “amen” :)</p>
<p>The top story on my company intranet site has the toll-free phone number of our healthinsurers 24 hour mental health line in case you need to speak with trained counselors.</p>
<p>While I’m sad with Sandy Hook, the violant act that hit home to hook with me was the shooting at the Long Island pharmacy in June 2011. The clerk who died was a week away from her HS grad, just like D1.</p>
<p>Sorry, OT! </p>
<p>Jym, clear some space in your inbox! :)</p>
<p>I did, alwaysamom-- can you resend?</p>
<p>DocT - So sorry to hear about your coworker. We had all been hoping for a better outcome . . .</p>
<p>MaineLonghorn - Thanks for your efforts to keep this thread open!</p>
<p>I am so pained by the thought that the Westboro Babtist Church family might picket some of the funerals. It boggles the mind. How can anyone be so insensitive and cruel?</p>
<p>I’m so glad I found this thread. I’ve been crying for days and can’t get the picture of these babies huddled together while being massacred by a deranged person wielding a weapon designed to fill them with multiple bullet holes in mere seconds. There are no words to console. I feel utter shame that this great country can’t take care of its mentally ill, glorifies violence in tv and video games, but the absolute greatest shame is that we protect the right for the selling and ownership of semi-automatic guns and high-capacity magazines that serve no purpose other than the killing of mass numbers of people with no chance of escape or survival. It’s actually legal to buy bullets designed to tear through body armor! How can we tolerate this anymore?</p>
<p>I’m so sorry, DocT.</p>
<p>I haven’t read this whole thread. Has anyone posted this? I’m doing it: [Inspired</a> to act: #26Acts of kindness to honor those lost in Newtown, Conn. - U.S. News](<a href=“U.S. News: Latest Breaking Stories, Video, and Photos on American Politics, Economy, and Society | NBC News”>U.S. News: Latest Breaking Stories, Video, and Photos on American Politics, Economy, and Society | NBC News)</p>
<p>I’m sad, too. I’m not an emotional person, but can’t help tearing up when I think about it. I have no connection to anyone there, and am 1000 miles away. I have elementary school students and I like to trust that they are safe at our neighborhood school. I can’t seem to get this out of my mind. I never felt this way about other mass killings. I think it makes it worse that it is right before the holidays. I don’t feel happy about celebrating when I’m thinking of all those who are suffering.</p>
<p>I also have noticed that the number 26 keeps coming up in memorials.<br>
28 people are dead. I know that many do not like to remember the mother killed at home, or the shooter. But even the shooter was a victim, in a way, of his own mental illness. I was thinking that his father has lost a son. His brother has lost his only brother. Would anyone attend the shooter’s funeral–except out of anger or protest? Should we mourn the loss of all human life–even if the person was mentally ill, even if he committed a horrible crime?</p>
<p>I saw that some gamers have designated Friday as a “day without shooting”–that they will abstain from violent games this Friday in memory of the victims. Yesterday I talked to my teenage S, who, like many boys, likes to play Call of Duty. I told him he should give it up out of respect for the dead–and respect for life. He should ask himself, “Is this ‘GOOD’?”
“Does playing this game make me a better person in any way?” Some people say there is no connection between video games and crime. Even if there isn’t, I don’t believe that a casual attitude toward shooting/killing other human beings–even imaginary ones–for entertainment can be good or healthy.</p>
<p>I can’t stop thinking about it either. When the President read the list of names, I cried. Same thing when Anderson Cooper read them, I think, a couple of nights ago. He also cried, and he said that he breaks down often off-camera. The mood in my office 3000 miles away is somber, still today. </p>
<p>This is affecting everyone.</p>
<p>This morning one of my co-workers brought in little ribbons she’d made, green and white. I’ll wear mine, but it feels so small in the face of such evil.</p>
<p>LasMa, The fact that you are wearing the little ribbon has just given me an ounce of inspiration to stay positive here. Thank you.</p>
<p>atomom – I have thought the same thing. This woman was a human being who I am not fit to judge, not having walked in her shoes. Her son was once a little boy with a future she hoped and dreamed for. It is all so sad. Why not weep for that little boy who was overcome by whatever changed him into this evil man, and her, and her family (how painful it must be to lose someone, or to see this coming and be helpless and now be alone in your grief…)</p>
<p>It must be difficult for the shooter’s brother and father. The brother has lost his mother and brother. The father his son and must feel great remorse that his son killed so many innocent children. As a parent, I’m not sure I could live with that.</p>
<p>I just read an article in my USAToday that the mother was trying to get help for her son and trying to get him admitted to a psychiatric facility. That he was very angry and thought that his mother was abandoning him.
Check out this article from USA TODAY:</p>
<p>Reports: Lanza may have been angry about mother’s plans</p>
<p>[Reports:</a> Lanza may have been angry about mother’s plans](<a href=“http://usat.ly/UDI21L]Reports:”>Reports: Lanza may have been angry about mother's plans)</p>
<p>Hope this is allowed and works</p>
<p>This shooting has made me so sad and so scared. So much life and potential was wasted. Its heartbreaking. So painful. Why, oh why?</p>
<p>At the same time, I go to a relatively poor high school. We don’t have much money or security. My family isn’t particularly strong and not can we use firearms. We’re simple people. I’m so scared all the time now, constantly that someone will come and kill us. It’s really unhealthy and I’m being so paranoid. I know half of it is because I’m tired but I think I am having a hard time understanding.</p>
<p>The NYT did a piece about the shooting and referred to Ivan’s monologue/story to Alyosha where he questions the justness of the universe. (from TBK) I read the book sometime back but it never hit me as hard as it did now. I need to really reflect on this.</p>