A School I Know

When my children were little they went to small neighborhood school. K through 3 were the grades in it and if anything was ever said about that school that was not positive it did not come from me.

I would frequently pick my kids up in the afternoon and I remember marveling with wonder at how the Principal of the school knew every child's name. She said good bye to each child as she made sure they were in the right line or got on the right bus. If a child did not come through the line she would recognize it and send a message to that child's teacher asking where they were. The kindergarten teacher that both my children had was amazing. She, like all kindergarten teachers nowadays I suppose, gave her kids hugs constantly. She would get her bus kids on the way and then she would bring her charges that were being picked up and make sure each child was safely in the hands of the parent or person who was picking them up.

It was an amazing place to me, the caring, the organization, the nurturing, loving environment. My primary school experience was a solid one but it was a different time, there was not constant hugging, and any interaction with the principal was surely a negative thing. Times have changed and certainly for the better.

We went to chorus concerts, PTO meetings, Jack O Lantern and later Fall Jubilee's. Our children in second grade all did a biography night and my step son who entered our family with my wife a bit later is tired of hearing about how wonderful biography night is and how he missed out.

I remember asking my third grade son about the school, if anyone ever felt sad or was picked on and he said " Dad no one would ever want to be mean at 14th street school." He was perhaps naive but he was absolutely sincere. It was , in short, a little piece of heaven.

My suspicion is that this school in Sandy Hook , this school was the same type of place. A little bit of heaven where these kids felt safe and loved. If what happened could happen there it could happen anywhere. It is a thought that has made me ill and upset for the last two days. This is not, however, about me, it is about this awful thing that has happened and how we all have to move past our sadness and consider how to prevent these events.

What I know is this. Every child should have a place to go to school where " no one would ever want to be mean." There is nothing more important than providing for our children's education and fear can never be in the equation of a successful education.

I read a column by Buster Olney where he talked about greeting his little boy off the school bus Friday. It made me cry. I watched a children's choir sing Silent Night on Saturday Night Live last night and I cried. I watched a video of my daughter at seven years old giving her biography night speech in the gym of her school, her safe haven.

And I cried. We always imagine how we would ever cope with such a thing and we pray we would never have to. I cannot fathom what these people are going through. Then my seventeen year old son and I have a tiff over whatever silly thing it is we are debating about and I feel stupid and small and imagine him in kindergarten laying down on his mat for rest time. And I cry. I feel like the Indian in the littering commercials we all remember from our childhood, with that silent tear on his cheek.

I am tired of crying. And yet I have lost nothing. Can you imagine...