It’s a place I’ve tried to avoid since the turn of the millennium. I pass through there regularly, but I bite my lip, swallow past that huge lump in my throat, and try not to cry. I do not stop.
That’s because it’s such a lovely place with a huge hole. Last year that hole got bigger. Not just for me but for all the folks who love its windy, tree lined roads, its historic houses, its New Englandness. For all those who love children. For all those who hate violence.
My sister Judy lived there. I miss her.
I was forced to go through there. As we drove north to Maine on Saturday, traffic came to a halt. I knew the roads from a few decades of driving them. I took them to get where we were going. Yes, we got off the highway, and I wound my way down the streets of Newtown, Connecticut. Through Sandy Hook.
We stopped for gas at a Mobil station right next to the Blue Colony Diner, where my sister helped me laugh through my troubles thirty years ago. Where the two of us solved all the world’s problems over coffee and pie. Where we laughed and cried, but mostly laughed.
On the door of the gas station was a sign that made me cry, too. But in a different way.
Yes. Sandy Hook Chooses Love. Love over hate. Love over violence. Love over the 2nd Amendment.
And so do I.
FiftyFourandAHalf 
Pingback: The nurturer, the warrior and the blogger | The Monster in Your Closet
This is just beautiful, & ending with that sign is so precious. It’s wonderful. A place with a big hole… I can see why, but you made a beautiful post of it.
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Thanks, Words.
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I couldn’t agree more.
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Thanks, Sheri!
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In NY, I keep seeing signs that are insane. They read “Keep NY Safe Law” The words are circled and a line is drawn through the circle. The signs were put up in protest of the stricter guns laws being debated by our legislature. Who in their right mind could be against keeping our state safer?????
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That’s what I’m always asking myself about these crazy gun folks (which isn’t all gun folks but more and more of them).
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Virtual hugs. There’s no getting around it. You have to pass through CT, through Newton to get to Maine. Thank you for sharing this sign. Your loss and Newton’s loss, no way to get around it…always there…but then so can love always be there. I hope you can meet up with Darla, that you can meet your deadlines, smile over your computer at the lobstah boats, and most of all that you can enjoy that scene on your header. What a journey for you this Labor Day weekend.
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Thanks, Georgette. I hope I get to see Darla, too. One deadline met, the other coming up!
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I can feel the emotion from your words. It is an amazing thing that they choose to love when so many would choose to be bitter and wither.
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Thanks Michelle. But you know, this made me feel better. The sign, that is.
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Sad indeed. Just seeing the sign forged a hole in my stomach.
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Strangely, it made me feel a bit better. It made me feel like evil doesn’t reign, even in such a senseless tragedy.
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Congratulations on become one of us “Seniors” eligible to begin withdrawing some of the investment you made in withholdings over a working lifetime. Not to worry, it will be there for you, you earned it and you deserve it.
I have been retired for some time and enjoy blogging, mostly about the Political scene from an Independents viewpoint depicted on my About page and have no problems, not even a harsh word.
I loved my travels in the New England states during the summer, so steeped in history, so many beautiful flowers and so many nice folks in Connecticut, it is one of my favorite states.
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Senior? No. I am 56. I feel 80, though, does that count. Maybe I can get some of my social security now …
I am from CT, and lived in MA. Now I am in DC. Actually I am in Maine, but I normally live in Northern VA outside of DC.
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Aaaargh! I am totally red faced. How could i make such a terrible blunder, and on one of my favorite Blogs, and to such a nice person…
I was stupidly thinking that Social Security started at 55. Wrong. I know better but was not thinking. My only excuse is that I can’t type with one foot in my mouth or maybe blame it on my medication.
Anyway I am way sorry. Please forgive me
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NO worries. At the moment I’m wishing I was retired — I’m working late tonight!
As to excuses, the more
Creative, the better!
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(Hugs) i don’t know what else to say.
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Thanks, TD. It actually struck me as the best way to handle the horrible. We choose love. Right on!
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It’s a struggle, but I’m trying to do that as well.
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It is hard for all of us, I think. In many ways it goes against our instincts. And at times it is harder than at other times.
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Yes. Very much so.
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I’m sorry for your loss, and for all those who lost on that horrible day.
Hope the lobstah boat view makes the work go faster. Are you getting together with Darla?
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Yes!!! If at all possible. She’ll be starting school when I head b.ack that way but we are going to try. She’s about 4 hours from where I am! Maine is HUGE!
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How long are you going to be “in country”?
I’m so jealous- damn, damn, damn!!! You two better set out a champagne glass for me and pretend I’m there. I’ll be the one saying the most hysterically funny, yet poignant, stuff, that has everyone in stitches.
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I’m not sure how long i’ll be here. It’s a long story (which I will, no doubt blog about in the next few days.
We will obviously drink to you (although it will be coffee, i’ll be on the road And Peg? Of course you will be saying the funniest things. Don’t you always? 🙂
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Powerful words from your heart …. and peace to you on your next trip through.
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Thanks. I normally just try to breathe deeply and get through. I end up through there not infrequently. Family and friends still live in the area.
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Meanwhile, enjoy Maine!
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I always do. But I’m mostly working I still have huge deadlines but we had to come up.
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Working? … hopefully limited.
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Sadly no. C’est la vie. I am seeing lobstah boats from over top of my computer. Post on why I am here should be coming.
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The Queen’s Camp David.
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That sign speaks volumes and now for all of us to choose love too! Thank you for sharing!
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It really touched my heart.
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Now if only we could all choose love, gratitude, peace.
I am thankful you wrote this Elyse. Short, beautifully done.
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Thanks, Val. There are so many places that haunt. I love the idea that they are fighting the hate, while advocating for gun sanity.
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I read the other day that some schools there now have armed guards. So it looks like it takes a real tragedy to get some people to acknowledge the bare minimum of common sense.
The Gun Free School Zone Act that Congress passed some years ago was like putting up a huge flashing neon sign above schools that said “KILL KIDS HERE!” to all the psychopaths that want to go out with a bang, literally.
My only conclusion is that some people hate guns more than they love kids.
lwk
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“Some people hate guns more than the love kids”???
You are blinded by the false freedom you feel you have by your ability to shoot. By the power you feel playing god.
Guns have one purpose and that is to kill. And so many of the gun rights crusaders are blinded by selfishness. It doesn’t matter how many innocents die to you — regardless of their ages. As long as you can have your false vision of self protection and the equally false fantasy that you will be the one good person with the gun to stop the bad guy with the gun.
Your position is stupid and dangerous.
This is a blog about peace. And forgiveness.
Go away. Do not come back. All future comments along this line will be trashed. My blog. My rules.
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“This is a blog about peace. And forgiveness.”
Yes, that is very apparent in the violent and unforgiving words you use against people you disagree with.
lwk
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Unforgiving — yup. Violent? No.
Go away.
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This reminded me so much of the bells tolling on the September 11th mornings in the years after 2001. I remember in particular one year, ordering a bagel in a shop on a corner in Brooklyn with my son and listening to the list of names being read aloud on the television. That list that goes on and on. And swallowing that lump yet again. Poignant piece of personal history tied in with the collective one.
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Thanks D. There are too many times we’ve all had to get beyond the completely unacceptable evil that exists.
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I can relate … the Aurora movie theaters where, last summer, 12 people, and more than 70 were injured by a mad gunman is just about two miles from where we live. We drive by it often. I don’t often make it to the other side of town, where the deaths at Columbine still echo…but, when I’m in the area, it still makes my eyes misty, even after all these years.
Sadly, in a state that’s had two mass shootings, we don’t have “We choose love signs”… though we do have a license plate with a columbine flower (our state flower) that says ‘respect life’, and was sort of a remembrance of Columbine, but, seems to have morphed into a statement about abortions.
Hopefully the parents of the Sandy Hook children will be successful in their efforts to get us to pass some sensible regulations on gun ownership.
We here, in the state with two headline making massacres, passed legislation a few months ago, for stricter control. The NRA, and the “they’re coming for our guns” crowd have been working overtime to get two state senators recalled, and part of Colorado (the Northern corner) is trying to secede.
Many here in Colorado don’t seem to have learned the lessons we should have from our massacres.
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No, many of the gun guys have in fact learned the opposite lesson (see the comment to/from lbk below). Why is this so difficult? Why are the folks on. Our side the only ones with common sense?
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I am so sorry for your loss and really for all of the losses there.
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Thanks, Mae.
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I had a similar experience driving through Columbine a few years back. It still gives me a lump in my throat.
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Such a waste — all of these tragedies.
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Now if everyone else could see past the rhetoric…
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And through the bullshit, too.
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