Moving from Fear to Hope

I cried in my son’s first grade classroom. I wasn’t planning to do that. I was going in to help kids with reading, or giving a spelling test, or organizing some papers. I didn’t expect to cry when I found out that there would be a lock down drill during the one hour I was scheduled to be in the classroom. When the teacher told me, I felt dizzy and panicky. I couldn’t hold back a few tears and told the teacher why I couldn’t pull myself together. She was wonderful. She was amazing. She listened. She hugged me. Then she went to figure out how to lock the door of her portable classroom and I gingerly pulled the blinds down around the windows so as not to alarm the kids. She calmly called the kids to gather in the reading corner on the rainbow rug. The kids wiggled on the mat like little squirrels looking up at us with big beautiful eyes, confused about what we were doing yet still innocent, sweet, and happy. The teacher hadn’t wanted to scare the kids, but she let them know they were practicing what to do in case there was an emergency. Then it was over. Class resumed and I, relieved, went to the copy room to make photocopies.

You see, two years before, I had been on the elliptical machine at the gym in Litchfield County, Conn., when I saw on the news screen a line about Sandy Hook Elementary. I can’t remember what the words said, but I stared at the screen, unsure of what was happening. Sandy Hook was where I took my then 4-year-old son to get his hair cut.

I finished my workout, picked up my 2-year-old from the gym daycare, drove home, showered, and prepared to pick up my son from preschool on that Friday morning. I don’t remember how I found out what happened in Sandy Hook. What I do remember is picking up my son at preschool. While waiting for the 1 p.m. release, the parents were like zombies: quiet and lifeless, yet distraught at the same time, processing what had just happened in a nearby town. As each child was released, one by one, each parent embraced their child so tightly I thought they’d never let go.

That following Monday I returned to preschool as a volunteer. All the doors were locked now all the time. The teachers were adjusting to a new reality — a confusing, scary, difficult reality.

I was not able to process that day very well, because in three weeks, we were moving across the country to Seattle. I was busy sorting, cleaning, tossing, packing, and getting ready for our cross-country move. My mind was on other things, and though I was grieving, I couldn’t fully mourn the tragedy so close to home.

In Seattle, when our son was in kindergarten at his new school, his classroom was the first one on the left from the main entrance. I had visions of someone coming into that classroom, and well, you can imagine the rest. I was relieved when he made it through that year alive.

My son’s public school is amazing. The community is everything I had hoped it would be. There are several parent and grandparent volunteers who come in and out of the building daily to help in the classroom, playground and lunchroom. At first, I had wanted to make a big fuss about security and locking the front door during the school day. I thought that was going to be my platform, my soapbox. But after the crying incident, I decided that something in me had to change. I didn’t want to live in fear anymore. I didn’t want to let fear drive me. After some reflection, I had to shift that fear and move to a place of hope and love. Hope that this kind of violence would never touch my school community. Belief that our community is strong and committed and that love would ultimately win and have the last word.

Last week, as I cleaned my house in preparation for guests, I listened to NPR for more than five hours straight. As the broadcasters reported on the devastation and terrorist attacks around the world, one thing became clear to me: There is a lot of fear out there. Of course fear has its place, but I refuse to let fear in the driver’s seat of my life again. I’ve been practicing this shift from fear to hope for a while now.

Choosing to lean into hope and love, choosing to see every kid and every person as beautiful and unique, and choosing to believe in the power of community is essential for myself, for our kids, and for our world. I am not paralyzed by fear anymore, but am free to respond and to help. I choose to stand alongside the most vulnerable and believe that compassion is stronger than fear. Yes, there are risks. But these days leaving the house is a risk, going to school is a risk, basically anything we do poses risk. We have a choice every day to choose compassion, love, and hope, or we can choose fear. I still grieve and I mourn for the loss of life, but I am compelled to work even harder to love, to help, and to hope.