December 11th

I could tell when I pulled in the drive that MeMa was not home yet as the house was dark.  I looked at my watch to see that it was past the time she would normally be home.  Just as I layed my work bag down my cell phone started to ring and when I answered there was her voice telling me she was headed to Clackamas Town Center to check on a few gifts for the Little Terrorists.  Not a problem I told her, I was going to change and head out to the garden to do some clean-up.  An hour at least passed when my phone went off again, MeMa’s voice, only this time she gave a nervous chuckle and said it will be a bit before she returns home as she was barricaded in one of the Mall stores with other shoppers because there had been a shooting and the Mall was on lock down.  She said she was in the back of the store behind shelves and out of sight, and not to worry.  I turned the TV on and there was an aerial shot of the mall, the reporter talking about two deaths and possibly more.  They had a triage tent set up in the parking lot and it was so hard to see the scene because of all the ambulance and police cars had their lights flashing.  The nearby freeway ramps had been shut down and hundreds of police swarmed the Mall immediately when they arrived, a new policy to prevent more deaths of innocent people.  In the past they approached slowly in order to access the situation better, but that process often meant more deaths.  My pulse raced but I felt in my heart that my lovely wife was safe.  About another hour MeMa called and said the police told them if they are able to get to their cars they would like them to leave so that was when she called, as she was headed to her car and leave the Mall.  I stayed on the phone with her until she was clearing the Mall and headed home.  Two innocent people died that night a third rushed to the hospital near death, the gunman dead by his own hand before he could kill any more innocent shoppers.  That evening I happily went about our normal night time routines and thought how lucky we are to be safe in our home together and prayed a silent prayer for the families of the victims who are going through their private hell this close to Christmas.  

At work  that Friday December 14^th was just a typical Friday, I busied myself getting work done so that I might get done early because Little Terrorist #1 Taeya was going to sing in her school Christmas performance and I didn’t want to be late.  I dashed down to the mail room to get my daily pile and as I returned to my office I was asked if I had heard the news of Sandy Hook Elementary School?  The news was the blackest most evil thing I had heard.  Innocent children the youngest only a little older than my own granddaughter, the news hit me like I had been punched, knocking the wind out of me.  All these little children dead, shot as many as eleven times at close range.  The motive??? Who knows, there is no motive for this senseless act of violence against innocent children.  I arrived at Taeya's school early and waited in the car listening to the ongoing investigation that was to give no answers.  I gathered myself together so that when I greeted my granddaughter I was nothing but her smiling Poppi.

Our Taeya is in the red dress on the right

The sparkle and magic of the performance was so contagious that the evil of the world was soon lost, pushed away from thought by the singing of little voices.



Little Lucy watching as big sister performed



Sisters