Christmas Was Not Really Christmas After Newtown

Of course we celebrated the birth of Christ at my home. But I felt grief all day.
I didn't let on to the family. I did persevere. I kept telling myself those lost at Sandyhook were not
my family. Yet Christ was born in order to remind me they were.
I knew with an accute awareness all day how hearts once whole in the breasts of so many parents
and other relatives were masticated now, masticated with heavy slate-feeling pieces fitted right behind the heart surfaces, and again behind the swollen eyes crinkled with dry, bloody corners.
How would these terribly burdened bretheren endure?
There would be so many toys going to unintended purpose.
The pain of knowing the space where I had lived, worked, influenced, shaped for good of little
children could possibly come to this horror in Connecticut indeed proved a heavy, pressing presence.
Today, after months of allowing these feelings to settle themselves, my grief for those who mourn
the most bitter losses gives me over to more prayer than I could previously mumble or assemble.
God bless Newtown.