A Mother’s Sorrow

As news broke of yet another school shooting, so did my heart.

Eight, nine, and ten year old babes slain as they learned.

Teachers, as mothers, laid down their lives protecting the sons and daughters for someone else.

Parents held back as they waited and wailed.

And all I can do, right now, is hold my darling daughters close.

Put away my work, Put down my phone, and play with them.

And I’ll try to memorize every little bit of who they are.

The humming sound my nine-year-old makes when she is nervous lives on a loop in my head.

I will forever smile at the sweet way my ten year old compliments everyone she meets.

The feeling of holding the strangely tiny hands of my nearly grown oldest cannot be forgotten.

I listen and hold onto their voices, their laughs, their tears, and, yes, their fights.

I hold these memories firmly.

The way they look when they’re sleeping.

The feeling of them wrapped in my arms.

My heart is full.

But.

When I am alone...

I weep bitterly.

Will my children be next?

How long? How long will evil triumph? How long will travesties like these grip our world?

My heart aches at the very thought of never holding, hearing, and seeing them again.

And I break.

I am anguished.

I am bewildered.

I am enraged.

I’ve read of parents who were held back as they waited outside that school and heard of a woman who risked her life and being arrested to go in and retrieve her two children.

What parent wouldn’t run headlong into the path of bullets to save their child?

If ever needed, I would lay my life down for my children.

My heart hurts for those mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers…

They must have felt so hopeless and terrified.

I desperately want to fix this world for my children, their children, all the other parents, and myself.

I, however, cannot wish or pray the horrors away.

I cannot make the world right.

The fact of the matter is, “There is a futility that is done on the earth: there are righteous people who get what the actions of the wicked deserve, and there are wicked people who get what the actions of the righteous deserve…” (Ecclesiastes 8:14)

“Despite all their efforts to search it out, no one can discover its meaning. Even if the wise claim they know, they cannot really comprehend it.” (Ecclesiastes 8:17b)

So, this is where I live.

Yes, God is still good.

Yes, murder is still wrong.

And I don’t understand it.

I don’t get it.

I never will.

There is a desperation that gnaws at my soul to flip these words around and give comfort or advice, but I can’t, because there are none this side of heaven.

Here is what I have to share:

Today, I will decide to take in not just the evil, but the beautiful as well.

I will tuck away the smiles of my children and those children lost.

I will hide them in my heart and cherish them.

I’ll thank God for the moments.

Take my time in the sun.

Feel grass beneath my feet and let each moment have it’s time.

Sorrow in sadness.

Joy in happiness.

Confusion in the unfathomable.

And occasionally, all of them at the same time.

Right now, know this is the time for sorrow, I weep and ask God why.

He holds me close, assures me he knows, and lets me feel it all, just as I do with my own darling daughters.

“Do not banish me from Your presence or take Your Holy Spirit from me. Restore the joy of Your salvation to me and give me a willing spirit.” (Psalm 51:11-12)

Do let your heart be troubled, mama, because these are indeed troubling times.

But… if you can, seek out and hold onto joy.

Today, I find a sad kind of joy in a Huston family, who had lost their own child before, bringing over 2,000 teddy bears to comfort the Uvalde families.

I see a community that comes together by offering food, creating memorials, and coming together.

A man and his son carrying a large cross near the elementary ignites a gloomy hope that we might be more inclined to carry one another’s burdens.

It hurts, and it is inspiring.

Hold on, dear parents, through the ache, through the tears, through the anger, the fears, the confusion, and chaos.

Know that many of us are holding on right alongside you.

Comments: AnnaMarie.Ward@southeastiowaunion.com