The page is not blank, I am blank

For years I have just sat down and started to write.  Occasionally, I get a word or thought during the day that calls to me and I feel I want to clarify my thinking so I put it on paper and more recently, share it on the blog.  Sometimes I get comments back from folks and some are folks that I don’t even know that tell me my words are crap or meaningful to them.  Either way, it is my opinions and thoughts and I have to live with them.  I don’t rewrite or edit except when I read it and can’t make sense of it or even I can see that the spellcheck is possessed or has gone dyslectic like the writer.   Every once in a while I get a blank paper - blank mind attack and sometimes I get an over full life that keeps me from the page.  I know my routine is best served with a scribble so I scribble.  

That is not the case this morning. I have spent my life trying to say the right thing at the right time to the right person so that I could help them move on with their life.  I have had to say some hard things such as telling a child they missed the moment of their parents death, their daughter is pregnant by the Chaplin of the facility their child was placed at to help her grow into a productive young woman and now she is “growing” with some fools child, I had to try to comfort abused children and try to help them not believe they were asking this important adult to beat them or rape them, and I tried to help a seven year old boy, holding the pant leg of his father who was shot dead by the police as he was pulled to the floor by the weight of the man he called dad. 

But nothing that I have ever experienced would be anything like the helping team faced yesterday as they walked into a fire hall to tell parents and loved ones of 18-20 children that their young fresh lives had been taken from them with no opportunity for their tomorrows and taken just because they were in a safe place with an unstable person. I tried to think of what I would say or how I would say it. Sorry but….  You have been given a great challenge… nothing is permanent…..like any day, you have come to take your child home but today is different…... I was reminded yesterday that it is ever so important to really let your words fall from your head to your heart before they exit your mouth.  Sometimes we just say things that are well meant but come out stinging.  So today, maybe for the first time, I would have no confidence that I could rise to the occasion presented yesterday.  There are no words.  My heart goes to the children, the families, but also to each of the professionals on the helping team, who tried to reach into their soul to come up with something that would mean even a crumble of solace to those lost in their own pain….. and tomorrow is a new day…