The Queen's Rambles

I just did what felt like one of the hardest things I’ve ever done. I took Erik to the bus stop, let him get on the bus and ride off to school. I seriously considered keeping him home this week, but what good would that do? I can’t put armour plating around my house and never leave home again. I can’t protect my children from random evil in the world. I can only hope that the random evil never touches us.

That’s an awfully big hope.

I can’t really write much more about it. It’s too big, too painful. I know every parent in this country, if not every single person in the entire world is reeling from the pain of the events. I don’t have much to add, except that this country has a serious, serious problem with treating mental illness. The mentally ill have to commit a crime before anyone will do anything, even when parents, teachers, friends and neighbors are BEGGING for help. I don’t know if that was the case with this young man, I just know it’s the case with my sister (my God, you people will not believe what she’s done. She will most likely be going to jail for a long, long time if she is not murdered by the criminal element first [the last I heard her own children are safe with their father. He is filing for custody and talking to children’s services about keeping them in a safe house until my sister is arrested.])

So . . . what to say? Terrible, terrible weekend. I haven’t been able to sleep. Erik is a first grader. That could have been his room, his teacher. I couldn’t stop crying when I heard the news, and then I cried even more when I heard about the heroics of Victoria Soto, the quick thinking teacher who saved her class of students but died in the process. She was so young. That’s the name I want to remember from all this. Not the name of the man who snapped.

I want to keep Erik home on Friday, 12/21, the day of the end of the world. I don’t think the world is going to end, but it seems like a day that people might go crazy. He should be home with me. Except they have a special science day planned and he is completely excited. They are going to have all kinds of big magnets and other special equipment and they are bringing in a special science education program to put on a show. Do I give in to fear and keep him home and hope I’m wrong, or do I refuse to be paranoid and send him off to the unknown?

There were only 8 kids at the bus stop today. There are usually 16. I wonder how many were ill and how many parents decided to just call this week a wash and enjoy the heck out of their kids.