Tonight, we hold them tight.

I am rarely motivated to write when a national tragedy occurs. I have now lived to hear of many: Columbine, 9/11, Virginia Tech, and the Colorado movie theatre shooting, to name a few. It isn't that they don't evoke emotion. They always do. Fierce emotion. They have all rocked me to my core, questioning humanity, wondering what has happened to our society, wondering what has happened to our society's general mental health. But, I have never written because so many writers do, excellent writers with convicted words, and I just read, nodding in agreement with how sick our society has become. My words seem insignificant in such monumental tragedy.

But, today. Today is different. I need to write, no matter how insignificant.

Babies. 20 babies taken from their mama's, their daddy's. In an elementary school shooting.

Be still, mind, be still.

These babies are just a couple/few years older than my baby. Happy. At school to learn how to read and count. I can't. I just...can't.

I have not saturated myself with media today. I just turned on the 10 o'clock news to get the whole story... and I heard NBC reporter say, "This is such a delicate topic to cover and I don't know how to articulate this...but...the bodies of those children have just been removed from the school...their parents have been with them all day...".

Oh, dear God.

I am sobbing, aching, absolutely broken for those families. Their joy has been stolen. It's vanished, one week before Christmas. I imagine those kid's fear in that school. What they had to endure. What they had to hear and see. What their moms are feeling, which is completely unimaginable.

Evil is not enough of a description. There is no description to this act.

Tonight, I studied Lily's every move, her every physical characteristic, the way she speaks, how she observes, what the sound of her voice is truly like. I hugged and kissed and hugged and kissed. I said "I love you" more times than I could count. I let her eat pizza and M&Ms and let her wear her Spider-girl costume to bed. I just was. I just was with her, in the moment. Recognizing. Loving being her mom and absorbing her joy.

Because I could.

I want to remember this day for what it has taught me. I want to carry it in my heart and with every frustrating parental moment I want to remember how heavy my heart is tonight for these strangers that cannot and will not ever hug and kiss their babies again. This will never make sense to those families, or to any of us.

With every fiber of my soul, I am thinking about those families and praying for peace for them.

And as my baby just woke up from a bad dream, I take the opportunity to hold her tight. And just be.