I looked down at my 20 month old. He was trying to get into the recycling again, his hands searching in the dark cupboard underneath the sink. At any other moment, I would have redirected him. Go play with your blocks, I might say. Or, where is the doggy? But not this moment. I couldn’t. The words wouldn’t come.
For this moment, I just listened. I listened to the story of the girl hearing the loud bangs in the gym. I listened to the reporter say Obama would speak soon. I heard them say that the shooter was confirmed dead.
I didn’t turn on the TV, though. I knew I couldn’t sit through those images – those faces. It was hard enough to clear those voices out of my head.
Instead, I watched my son pulling out the empty boxes, throwing them on the floor. Covering them in dish soap. And then I turned off the radio, sat down on the floor and pulled out a box of my own.
One reply on “Listening”
My husband let me sleep in this morning and I missed my morning news. I found the news on facebook, through the grief of others, as my two week old sleeps peacefully. One cousin questions sending his four year old to school in the fall, another urges more gun control, another advocates everyone having a gun to protect themselves, he thinks there would have been fewer deaths.