Christmas Mourning

Most of my day was spent on holiday-related pursuits – listening to Christmas music, shopping for gifts, enjoying a gingerbread latte, wrapping presents… that sort of seasonal goodness. I was happy and busy… yet it was bittersweet, for punctuating my joy were flashes of grief as my thoughts kept returning to the many, many families who lost loved ones yesterday in the horrific events in Newtown, Connecticut.

Each time I found myself humming along with a Christmas tune, I stopped short when I realized that for some, songs that once inspired feelings of warmth or festivity will now be nothing more than wrenching reminders of tragedy.

Each time I purchased a gift for one of my loved ones, I reflected on the gifts bought by others with love and anticipation of delight that, now, will never be excitedly unwrapped by the intended recipient.

Each time I heard a small child laughing or crying or cajoling their parents for some treat or other, my heart ached to think of the parents who would never again hear their beloved child laughing, or crying, or cajoling.

I am sad. I am angry. I am mourning.

And I am filled with wishful thinking. I wish I could make sense of why anyone would be possessed to carry out such a horrific act. I wish I could find a solution, an answer, a fix… whatever it would take to stop this sort of thing from ever happening again. I wish I could turn back time for every one of those families, so that Christmas would once again be a time of joy instead of mourning.

I wish.

Yet I can do nothing.