December fourteenth.. It  seems like just another date but its far from it. I came home from school that day, turned on CNN only to hear a news reporter say,  there has been a mass shooting at Sandy Hook elementary school. I immediately turned up the tv, to make sure that I heard correctly, a part of me hoping it wasn’t true. But it was. 20 students the ages of 6-7 had been murdered. Along with seven teachers who died protecting them. My heart, my heart skipped a beat and my eyes began to tear. I closed them and imagined each and every one of those babies. Their faces remained in my mind as i pictured their parents kissing them goodbye, whispering I love you and sending them off to school as they watched them walk away. Not knowing that was their last day.

I pictured them playing and laughing at recess as they shared their excitement of Christmas gifts to come. I felt.. I felt.. their fear when they saw the panic in each others eyes as they squeezed their fragile bodies together in hiding . I felt their pain.. quick but painful in those split seconds when... It was too much for me to contain.So I opened my eyes and sat their in disdain, saying my God , my God. Has it really come to this.

When I was a child I saw the world from pure eyes, all children do. Its as if at birth we are given imaginary goggles that blurred out the bad and enhanced the good..Life was as simple as the “w” shaped birds and stick figures that we drew in our scrapbooks.  Our hearts were not  hardened by animosity, UN-forgiveness, hate nor anger. We were angels in disguise. Innocence in its purest form. But then as the years glided by the burdens of reality weighed down on us. We began to discover through our own experiences that life.. this world.. had a dark side . a side we never knew existed then. And we have no choice but to thrive and survive in this world where everybody dies but not everybody lives. A world we once thought had no fault. But in the midst of all this we still find hope in the simplest of places, like in the eyes of child because they are a reminder to us that humanity still has some good left in it.

You never know when the day of eternal rest will sneak up on any of us, so please live your lives accordingly, appreciate every moment you have with those dear to you. And although the world lost twenty beautiful and inspiring beacons of hope that day, we should find comfort in knowing that they have gone to a place far better than here. A place made for angels like themselves.

And now as they lay down to sleep, I pray the lord their souls to keep, they won’t be with us when we wake , because they were guided towards heaven’s gates.

For our fallen angels: Noah, Charlotte, Jack, Olivia, Dylan, Catherine, Avielle, Jessica, James, Josephine, Caroline, Benjamin, Chase, Ana, Daniel,Grace, Emillie, Allison, Madaleine, and Jesse.