December 17th, 2012
I just got through a long weekend stretch of working. It feels like I was on a 3-day bender. In 72 hours (Friday through Sunday), I crammed in 40 hours of work, mingled that with tending to my boys at night when I got home, and somewhere in there, I found some sleep for my weary body.
For the first time since I lost my wife, I wept for something else unrelated to my situation. I cried for those children and adults lost in Newtown, Connecticut, at the hands of a killer, a downright coward. I cried because I could see those children's innocence through my kids' eyes. May God console those parents and their children rest in the Kingdom of God.
Their lively, busybodies, full of curiosity in all that life offers them, were cut short before it started. And now, I place myself in the shoes of the murdered children's parents by thinking of my own boys meeting such a horrible fate of a meaningless, senseless crime. I break down and cry, cry, cry.
When I first became a police officer, it was hard to envision any kind of heartache that a parent was going through when they called me to the scene of their nightmare, especially at a young age. Their frantic search for their drug addict son or daughter who is lost somewhere in the mean streets of the underworld. A seedy part of life that society has spent generation after generation ignoring.
I'd cut them loose, and they'll learn - I'd think to myself.
But now, I understand a parent's plight. Because, as a society, if we still thought the world was flat, I would travel to the edge of the world, knowing I would fall off until I found my own kids.
As a young adult, leaving my teens and heading into my twenties, I had just gone through the phase of bucking the system and fighting the authority that was my parents. I still lacked the maturity to understand what a worried parent goes through when a mom or dad loses their child to death or loss in the mean streets of society.
Now that I have matured physically and mentally, my clear thinking has allowed me to see the big picture of life and everything contained within it. I know the world outside the five-mile safety zone where I live and breathe.
When I arrive at a scene and deal with a parent who has an unruly child, a kid that is missing, a toddler that is hurt, an infant that has died, or any kind of circumstance that is related to their child, I refer to them as "mom" or "dad."
"Mom," I say as I place my arm around her, "they will be fine. We will find them."
"Dad," I say, looking into his eyes, "she will always be your little girl."
I want them to find comfort in the fact that I understand what they are going through. That I know the pain that is in their heart. They should know that I understand the tears of grief coming through their eyes, and I feel the pain that has rocked them to their inner core.
It's been a long weekend. My body is tired as I fight back the hours of lack of sleep the last three days. The minutes I wasted by remaining up beg me to let them back into my body so that I may find some rest tonight. But I don't want to sleep. Not now, not at this moment. I am watching my children sleep just a few feet away.
The house is dark except for the Christmas tree lights blinking on and off. The light illuminates from the far room, and the brightness works its way through the darkness of the house. The multi-color lighting breaks through the darkness that surrounds my children, and light reflects off their faces. I hear them breathing, and I find comfort in the fact that they are resting. I imagine they are playing in a happy world somewhere in their dreams.
I place myself in the parents who lost their children as I think of my own loss of my twin girls, Sophia and Gabriella. I have to believe that our children are sleeping well tonight. Their bed is in a celestial place where they find comfort and peace.
Our children are in a place that knows no evil, where pain has no place, and where rest is a heavenly place to be. May peace come to us all. Not just today but in our lifetime.
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