My heart hurts and I know yours does too. I know in my bones that you ache the same way that I do for the mommies and daddies and families of the precious babies killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. You are stuck, like I am, on the horrifying moments at the end of their precious lives. Hoping beyond hope that they were not scared and that right now as I type this, they are in a better and more beautiful place than this hard and cold and uncivilized world.  You want to hold their parents and tell them that it will be ok. But you know in your skin that it is not. That it cannot be ok. You want to take some portion of the their pain and absorb it for them. You want to scream into the air "WHY!?!?!? Why babies? Who fucking does this???" But there is nothing we can do. Nothing can change the horror that blew up our news feeds yesterday. Nothing can be done to fix it. It is done. And the pain rippled through the entire nation.

Last night I tucked my hearts into bed. I sang them songs and we said our nightly blessing. I spent a really long time just looking at them and touching them and kissing them until they became annoyed with me. I stepped away from all electronics yesterday because my urge was to play with and just be with my children. And for yesterday, for me, it was all I could do. It was how I could help. But that was yesterday. And now here I am, they are still sleeping this morning and I need to write out my heart. Now I need to talk about what we can do. How can we heal? How can we stop this from happening ever again?  And why haven't we figured this out yet?

I've written about this before. Because yesterday is not the first day that children have been killed in their schools. And it takes my breath away to say it out loud, but it won't be the last.

Friends, it won't be the last. So what do we do? How do we stop the next mass killing? If we knew that we would have done it, right?

The White House issued a statement yesterday  along the lines of "today isn't the day to talk about gun control" and while I have deep respect for our President and rallied for him all year to be re-elected, I disagree. Strongly. To me, it is the exact right time to talk about what can be done to prevent babies from being killed in their schools by raging lunitics. Don't get me wrong, I'm not syaing that gun control will fix everything. There are factors and factors and more factors and questions and answers and what ifs and strategies and policies and basic human unpredicatability all sitting at the table on this one. But at the head of that table sits a mentally ill person with weapons. Specifically guns. And that guy,  is the guy that walked into Sandy Hook school yesterday and into the movie theater in Aurora and onto the Virginia Tech campus and in that MacDonalds in California and that cafeteria in Texas and into Columbine High School and the NY imigration office. And on and on and on. We have to start with THAT GUY because he is the problem.

So we have to talk about guns. We just have to. We need to put aside our bullshit positions on the far left and far right and meet at the table. We have to make the representatives of our government sit down at the freaking table. What kind of people are we that we see these things happening over and over again but resign oursleves to not talking about guns because well, wait, what are the reasons?

We have to start. And we have to start because we have all had enough.

I'm not saying it's possible to end violence, although I have some ideas on that too, but I am saying that we can end children being murdered in their schools. We start by opening our front door and stepping out. We start by picking up the phone and calling our senators and representatives in Congress. We start by reaching out and connecting with people who are hurting. We start by genuinely giving a shit about our neighbors and their kids. We start by being present enough in our own life to be present in the lives of others too. We start by demanding the government to hear us. We start by supporting agencies that reach out to the sick and mentally ill.

We start with these things and then we don't STOP.  That is the key. We are angry now. We are horrified and sick to our stomachs over what happened yesterday. We are tearful and raw and we want to DO something. But we cannot stop doing them. We cannot forget to keep working the problem even when the news cycle has moved on.

So here are some ideas. Places to start. Places to place your energy or your money. I have contacted my representatives through email. I will call them today. I will also use this blog regularly to discuss and advocate that we never leave the table. Instead of gifts for me and the husband, we will be giving money to organizations that can help. That's what I have so far for us.

Now what about you?

Below there are agencies that need your money or your time or your influence. There are people to call and letters to write. There are things to do. We can change lives and heal broken hearts. And while none of us are big enough to do it alone, we are big enough to change one life. We can help. And we are big enough to spur our government into action. No more sitting back. We cannot sit back anymore. 

Let's change the world. One person at a time.

Join up.

Call or visit these programs, sites or agencies and see where they need help.