I had a very happy birthday, followed on Thursday by having a great time with Josie, Rosie and Grandma at the MoTab Christmas concert. It has been a long time since I have driven to SLC for an evening event, and I had forgotten the traffic and the parking woes. Josie and I dropped Grandma and Rosie off at the Conference Center just before 7:30, and then tried to find a place to park. We found one eventually, and then walked/ran and just made it into our seats seconds before the show started. While we were looking for a place to park, it was a very "down" time--I was wondering WHY on earth I thought doing this was a good idea! But then, in the concert, it was a very "up" time, and the looks on Josie and Rosie's faces as they heard Alfie Boe sing "Bring Him Home" live was enough for me to think that any hassles were worth it for them to have the experience. And then there was the story of "Hal" Halvorsen, the candy bomber, with the surprise meeting with him...and he was a very spry 91 year old, I must say! We all loved that part--but again, I was watching the girls. I was so happy they could have the experience of being there, and seeing it all in person--watching it on a DVD is just not the same thing!
Yesterday was Bruce's birthday, and we had planned to go out, but instead, Kelli and her family brought us dinner (Domino's pizza) and a cake. It was really sweet of them to do that. We had a really nice visit with them.
Here is the half-eaten cake. I should have remembered that my phone is also a camera sooner, and taken pictures of the people! Anyways, that was another "up" experience to be grateful for.
The downs: sometime in the morning at work, I gave myself a little break and went on Facebook. One of our former students, Lindsay W., had posted that she had taken her little sister to school (in Sandy, Utah) and then gone home and wanted to take a nap but was disturbed by police and firetruck sirens. A house four doors up from theirs was on fire. Sadly, it wasn't just a fire, but turned into a homicide investigation. Meanwhile, at Sandy Hook Elementary School, mayhem had broken loose. That was an incredibly sad, heart-wrenching piece of news.
It reminded me of 1996. The date was March 13, which was a Wednesday. Now, sometimes mornings getting children to school and myself to work could be really hectic and sometimes I could be really short on patience, but I remember that day was a good one. I particularly noticed because when I dropped Patrick and Nancy at Spitzee school, where Patrick was in Grade One and Nancy in Grade Five, my friend Sheila C. dropped her boys off at the same time, only they obviously had not had a good morning. Sheila, a volatile Brit, could really natter on when she felt inclined to do so, and that morning, she did. She and her sons did not have the pleasant "Bye! Have a nice day!' that I had with my kids.
And I probably would not have even remembered that, except for that a few hours later, while I was working in my office alone--and I was alone working most of the time--I was listening to CBC as I usually did, when the program was interrupted for a BBC news broadcast telling the horrible news of the Dunblane School Massacre in Scotland. I remember how I cried for those sweet little children and their families. And I remembered my own happy good-byes as I dropped my children at their elementary school...and I thought of Sheila and the terrible good-bye she had with her sons that morning. I thought of the parents in Dunblane, how some would have had a good morning, and others would not have, and none of them knew that was the last time they would see their children alive.
I watched the Facebook reactions of the young mothers, so similar to what mine had been when the similar tragedy occurred when I was in their shoes. My reaction this time was different, because I am no longer a mother of small children. But I can certainly remember the feeling of vulnerability--like nowhere is safe. But yet, we must go on, and we must not let fear rule our lives or the lives of our children. Because fear is the opposite of faith...and we can't let fear win!
After the Dunblane School Massacre, the people of the United Kingdom took action. "In response to this debate, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 and the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997 were enacted, which effectively made private ownership of handguns illegal in the United Kingdom."
On April 28, 1996, there was another massacre in Port Arthur, Australia. This one was huge, with 35 victims. The youngest was 3; most of them were fully grown people, so there was not the same kind of anger about it as there was over the deaths of the whole classroom of five year olds in Dunblane. But still, the end result was stricter gun control:
"Under federal government co-ordination all states and territories of Australia banned and heavily restricted the legal ownership and use of self-loading rifles, self-loading and pump-action shotguns, and heavily tightened controls on their legal use. The government initiated a "buy-back" scheme with the owners paid according to a table of valuations. Some 643,000 firearms were handed in at a cost of $350 million which was funded by a temporary increase in the Medicare levy which raised $500 million.Media, activists, politicians and some family members of victims, notably Walter Mikac (who lost his wife and two children), spoke out in favour of the changes."--this despite pro-gun lobbying by the Christian Coalition and the US National Rifle Association. (USNRA was lobbying in Australia?)
The Dunblane tragedy was so touching because the teacher pulled all the children together into a little knot, and she was exposed, trying to protect them all. Matthew 23:37 "how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings," comes to mind. Unfortunately, the killer was resolute in his shooting, and only one of the little chicks survived.
I wonder if the United States will ever learn from their massacres, and control guns better than they do, or will they wait until everybody kills each other, and then the last man standing can say, "Wow...maybe we should have controlled guns a bit better..." Apparently they have not been learning well so far: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/nine-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/
Yesterday was Bruce's birthday, and we had planned to go out, but instead, Kelli and her family brought us dinner (Domino's pizza) and a cake. It was really sweet of them to do that. We had a really nice visit with them.
The downs: sometime in the morning at work, I gave myself a little break and went on Facebook. One of our former students, Lindsay W., had posted that she had taken her little sister to school (in Sandy, Utah) and then gone home and wanted to take a nap but was disturbed by police and firetruck sirens. A house four doors up from theirs was on fire. Sadly, it wasn't just a fire, but turned into a homicide investigation. Meanwhile, at Sandy Hook Elementary School, mayhem had broken loose. That was an incredibly sad, heart-wrenching piece of news.
It reminded me of 1996. The date was March 13, which was a Wednesday. Now, sometimes mornings getting children to school and myself to work could be really hectic and sometimes I could be really short on patience, but I remember that day was a good one. I particularly noticed because when I dropped Patrick and Nancy at Spitzee school, where Patrick was in Grade One and Nancy in Grade Five, my friend Sheila C. dropped her boys off at the same time, only they obviously had not had a good morning. Sheila, a volatile Brit, could really natter on when she felt inclined to do so, and that morning, she did. She and her sons did not have the pleasant "Bye! Have a nice day!' that I had with my kids.
And I probably would not have even remembered that, except for that a few hours later, while I was working in my office alone--and I was alone working most of the time--I was listening to CBC as I usually did, when the program was interrupted for a BBC news broadcast telling the horrible news of the Dunblane School Massacre in Scotland. I remember how I cried for those sweet little children and their families. And I remembered my own happy good-byes as I dropped my children at their elementary school...and I thought of Sheila and the terrible good-bye she had with her sons that morning. I thought of the parents in Dunblane, how some would have had a good morning, and others would not have, and none of them knew that was the last time they would see their children alive.
I watched the Facebook reactions of the young mothers, so similar to what mine had been when the similar tragedy occurred when I was in their shoes. My reaction this time was different, because I am no longer a mother of small children. But I can certainly remember the feeling of vulnerability--like nowhere is safe. But yet, we must go on, and we must not let fear rule our lives or the lives of our children. Because fear is the opposite of faith...and we can't let fear win!
After the Dunblane School Massacre, the people of the United Kingdom took action. "In response to this debate, the Firearms (Amendment) Act 1997 and the Firearms (Amendment) (No. 2) Act 1997 were enacted, which effectively made private ownership of handguns illegal in the United Kingdom."
On April 28, 1996, there was another massacre in Port Arthur, Australia. This one was huge, with 35 victims. The youngest was 3; most of them were fully grown people, so there was not the same kind of anger about it as there was over the deaths of the whole classroom of five year olds in Dunblane. But still, the end result was stricter gun control:
"Under federal government co-ordination all states and territories of Australia banned and heavily restricted the legal ownership and use of self-loading rifles, self-loading and pump-action shotguns, and heavily tightened controls on their legal use. The government initiated a "buy-back" scheme with the owners paid according to a table of valuations. Some 643,000 firearms were handed in at a cost of $350 million which was funded by a temporary increase in the Medicare levy which raised $500 million.Media, activists, politicians and some family members of victims, notably Walter Mikac (who lost his wife and two children), spoke out in favour of the changes."--this despite pro-gun lobbying by the Christian Coalition and the US National Rifle Association. (USNRA was lobbying in Australia?)
The Dunblane tragedy was so touching because the teacher pulled all the children together into a little knot, and she was exposed, trying to protect them all. Matthew 23:37 "how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings," comes to mind. Unfortunately, the killer was resolute in his shooting, and only one of the little chicks survived.
I wonder if the United States will ever learn from their massacres, and control guns better than they do, or will they wait until everybody kills each other, and then the last man standing can say, "Wow...maybe we should have controlled guns a bit better..." Apparently they have not been learning well so far: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2012/12/14/nine-facts-about-guns-and-mass-shootings-in-the-united-states/
1 comment:
Did you hear about the teacher who hid her children in cupboards in the classroom and when the gunman entered she lied and told him they were in PE? He killed her but her entire class was saved. Amazing!
And she was only 27 years old—that's my age!
What a brave, brave woman.
But, yes, indeed...tighter gun control WILL help (regardless of what the general American population believes).
Oh, and ANOTHER shooting at a mall tonight. 3rd shooting this week.
So...there's that.
I LOVE YOU, too, Mom! I'm so glad that you read me that part of that one book once where the family always says that they love each other before going to bed... I can't remember much of it except that the mother decided she always wanted those to be the last words she said to her children, even if it was, "Don't get out of your bed again! I love you."
You were always a good example of that, too.
I'm so glad I "fixed" Friday morning with Rachel or I'm not sure I would have made it through the afternoon!
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