A Response To Tragedy

Things got unfortunately real today. I hope conversations are had and changes are made for everyone's sake.

    I’ve spent the last five years of my life working as the head coach of a local communtiy swim team. Our league is made up primarily of Conneticut and New York swimmers aged 5 to 16. I’ve been fortunate enough to bring my little athletes to the different pools and lakes in the area from our neighboring New Fairfield to Danbury and Newtown areas.  

    The thing is, when you get into a swim meet environment with anywhere from 50 to 100 kids running around, crying, scraping their knees and picking their noses, it all blends together. You rub a shoulder, kiss a booboo and hand over a tissue to your own little rugrats and the other teams indiscriminately.
    It’s all the same.

    When a kid gets out of the pool at the end of a long, hard race or if they’re too scared to get in the water to begin with, you’re there.You tell them "It's okay" and "You can do it," because they're young and full of potential and of course they can.

    It doesn’t take a whole lot of work to really care for these kids. They’ve got this evolutionary advantage that makes them pretty damn endearing. You want to keep these kids safe, watch them paddle off and experience great and beautiful victories. You just do.

    This is what I’m thinking about today, in light of the events at Sandyhook Elementary. The loss is the sort to weigh down on your heart in the worst way. Sure, monsters exist and sometimes they win. But, I’ll be damned if that makes it suck any less. 

     I think there are going to be a lot of important conversations coming up in the next few weeks. Ones about gun control, mental health services and personal liberties that will show the best and worst of us.

    I just hope we all remember the runny noses, scraped knees and races that are never going to be finished; I hope we remember what we really should be protecting.

“It's like in the Great Stories, the ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were, and sometimes you didn't want to know the end, because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened?

But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come, and when the sun shines, it will shine out the clearer. Those are the stories that stayed with you, that meant something even if you were too young to understand why. But I think I know now. Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back, only they didn't. They kept going because they were holding on to something-that there's some good in the world, and it's worth fighting for!”

― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings