Stop Making Sense

It all started with Hurricane Sandy.

Surveying the damage across the street from our house, October, 2012.

Two weeks after it blew through our region and darkened our home for ten long, cold days, I was driving the kids to swim class and we passed a cavalry of electric company trucks. I burst into tears. Our power was back (it had been restored for a glorious three whole days!) but seeing that army of trucks was a stark reminder, as were the massive overturned trees that could be seen, well, everywhere. People were still suffering. Things were far from normal.

Then came Newtown.

I still find myself tearing up, more often and unexpectedly. I still think about Sandy Hook, every single day when I take Ellie to school. Amidst the bedlam and chaos of elementary school children, weighed down by backpacks and winter coats and hats, shrieking and giggling and hugging and wrestling--life and death feels close. 

Ellie and my bedtime ritual used to include me reading her a book, rubbing her back for a few minutes, tucking her in and saying goodnight. Since December 14, I have stayed with her until her breathing slows and deepens, until she starts to snore adorably (as only those under age ten can make snoring adorable). Staying with her until sleep comes for what she calls our "Snuggle Time," it seems like the least I can do.

I still cannot wrap my brain around what happened at Sandy Hook. It is the epitome of unthinkable. How can any of us begin to grasp it? It simply does not compute, still does not seem possible. Yes, we hug our children tighter and we sign petitions and we give money. What else can we do?

Finally, less than a month ago, half a dozen of my co-workers lost their jobs (and hundreds more, within the company). Friends and esteemed colleagues. Here one day, gone the next.  Empty boxes sat outside offices, poised to be packed. Name plates abruptly came down and now hang blank. This was another kind of "does not compute" but still a very real one, to look around at our morning meeting and feel the void of so many faces. Then: Last week came the rumor that our company may be sold. Who knows what will happen if that transpires.

A hurricane. An elementary school massacre. Hundreds of people out of work. Hardships and horrors of different degrees of course, but tied together by one thread: You never know what's going to happen. You may think you have control, to some degree. But you really don't.

And so, I throw up my hands. Again. 

I learned to throw up my hands for the first time, thirteen years ago when my mother died. And again, when Leo was born, when I was reminded once more of our powerlessness in all of this, in this gift of life we have. You try to prepare and you just can't, no matter how much you think you can. The best you can do is hang on and hope for the best, hope that things are going to work out the way they are supposed to. That's what I'm doing. What choice do I have?

But for the record? I don't like this out of control feeling. Does anyone? I may try to keep things "tidy," with my organizer boxes for everything from toys to linens to Tupperware tops, but in my heart I know that I can't really control much at all.

I just can't recall a time where I have felt that so many things were so very much out of my hands.