The Face of Innocence

I look into the eyes of this beautiful precious child and my heart breaks. Although I've never met her I am deeply saddened by this image. Because of a man, a mere child himself only twenty years old, I'll never get to meet her. Her dad wept as he talked about how amazing of a heart she had always there for others, always there to cheer them up, who is going to cheer her parents up now. 

Working in the news I've realized is really hard at a time like this to focus on the task at hand and not be emotional. Even though I am far away in Virginia I feel, like much of the nation, connected to the unspeakable horror that stole these children from there families.

In every tragedy there are heroes though. Honoring those teachers who risked there lives to save there kids is one thing we as a nation can do. Victoria Soto is a hero, the principal Dawn Hocksprung is a hero. The people in this small community whether they lost their own kids or not feel the pain of the other families. Newtown Connecticut will never be the same, it will never be the quite town that it was and that isn't fair. 

Children are the most innocent human beings, they don't understand what happened December 14, 2012, but then again no one does. No one will ever be able to comprehend the horror that those innocent eyes and ears had to endure. No parent should ever have to feel the panic of not knowing if their child is okay and yet a whole community had to go through that. 

Where do they go from here, how do you cope. As a family who lost a child, as a friend, as a community, as a nation where do we go from here. It's hard when horrible things like this happen not to turn away from God but because he gave us free will we all are free to do as we please and unfortunately some people feel like they have the right to take the lives of others. 

No one has that right, only a coward would look into the face of innocence and hurt it. Emilie Parker your beautiful face has been etched into my mind forever and though I never met you, you, your classmates, and your teachers will never be forgotten.