Saturday, December 15, 2012

Holding Hands

Dear Fern and Rose,

     Yesterday started out as another day of  third grade and kindergarten for you;  folders of completed  homework in your backpacks,  you counted the days until Christmas break.  Laughter, songs and last minute instructions filled the car as your traveled to school. 

      Shortly after you arrived, four hundred miles away, kids and adults died by  the hands of a murderer, in a school similar to yours.  

E P and Clara Fern Moore
my grandparents
     How do we all get through this?  "I want everyone I love within my eyesight, with my arms around you"... I wrote on my Facebook page a few hours afterward.  My first reaction was to want to  gather up everyone precious to me and retreat behind protective walls.  I especially  wanted to protect you, my dear grand-daughters.

     Is that the best I can do for you?   

     When I was a young girl, my grandmother protected me.  She did not build walls around me, but instead encouraged me to venture out into a world bigger than anything she had experienced  herself.   

     She protected my with her presence.  She was available;  I knew I could talk to her about anything---first love, nursing school, marriage, parenthood, moving  away,  divorce, traveling to Africa, my sister's death....and she would listen without judgment.    

      She protected me by embracing the changing world--not running from it.   The world may be more violent than when she grew up, but she managed to survive hardships I can't imagine--- a third grade education, serious illnesses,  the death of her mother when she was still a child, marriage at age fourteen, poverty, economic depression, the dust bowl, sending  her two sons to war and living off the land as farmers.  

     She protected me by offering me a real, authentic relationship.  She celebrated my victories, comforted me when I failed, walked with me through loss, encouraged me to stretch and take advantage of opportunities. 


     What does all of this mean to you?

     We mourn for the tragedy yesterday.  Violence  does not make sense and never will.  One of the surviving children said he was  told to close his eyes and hold hands, to avoid seeing the carnage.  Wonderful advice for the moment.  

     Today, I acknowledge that danger is unavoidable, but living a restricted life based on fear does not allow me to see the needs of others, the possibility of wonder, the magic of relationships. 

      We need each other--the merging of youth and life experience. Together the possibilities are endless.

     With our eyes open wide, holding hands--with each other, friends and strangers--we will change the world, one touch at a time.  

     You are my sunshine.

                                                                   Love Always....Gram