In search of answers: sadness at Sandy Hook

 Planting inner peace   Curtains were drawn and the lights were off. Seated at my desk, I listened as Fatima, a Russian from Ossetia, made a power point presentation to my class about the religious tensions in the region she calls home. Part travelogue and part cultural documentary, her images conveyed a country and its countryside that resembled rural America. That’s why my students and I were completely unprepared for the slide that began her last ten minutes.

There, on our six foot by four foot screen, were pictures of the dead and dying teachers and students from Beslan.  On their first day of school, traditionally a time for parents and teachers and children to celebrate the new school year, Muslim murderers from Chechnya held hundreds captive. Eventually they killed almost 200 children and teachers. [please see: Beslan school massacre remembered six years on — RT

Three days of commemorations to mark six years since the Beslan school siege got underway on Wednesday in Russia's Republic of North Ossetia. More than 300 died in ...

rt.com/news/beslan-school-masacre-remembered]

Following the last slide in that traumatic set, a tearful Fatima, who was friends with a number of the victims, told us she stills asks why.

All of us wanted the same answer. I still do. In fact, I did today when I spoke to my partner. From her home, thirty-five miles from the site of the Sandy Hook massacre, she described today as profoundly “solemn” and cold in a way she’d never felt. People there were different, “considerate” in their interactions. She noted that they were never like that before at Christmas time.

“Every time I hear another story on TV,” she texted me, “tears come back.” We talked after that; she wanted to drive to Newtown but the President was on his way. We lost our connection then.

I was driving back from Hillsborough, NC. Dreary as the day was, I felt it darken. Our country had failed to stop such tragedies. As I thought of preventive measures, I clicked on a Stones CD and lost my composure when I heard “Fool to Cry.” After the first few lines, I was in tears as I imagined a father explaining to his child on his knee that this massacre had happened. [the rolling stones - fool to cry original - YouTube

Sign in to add channels to your guide and for great recommendations! Sign In › This video contains content from Eagle Rock and EMI Music Publishing, one ...

www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6yHoWgHRnw]

I didn’t hear the rest as I sensed an enormous emptiness, a compelling grief I couldn’t ignore. Pictures of the slaughtered children came to mind; I thought of my own, lately under attack in Israel.

At least I knew what the Israelis did. Was theirs the right answer? Many would argue against their preparedness.

I can’t. When I attended services at my host’s synagogue while visiting Israel’s West bank, I noticed that there was always someone with their sub machine gun praying near me. It rested on the floor like an unopened briefcase. Although it made me aware that trouble was a possibility, I also felt more secure in knowing that, if it came, all of us would have a fighting chance.

That wasn’t the case at the Sandy Hook school. I wondered why there weren’t double doors with metal detectors and bulletproof windows. Why weren’t there locks that worked automatically when an alarm registered? Why was there more than one entrance? And why was it unsecured?

I felt like screaming. Our children deserve to be protected regardless of laws allowing or disallowing firearms, specifically automatic weapons. That debate may be too lengthy to prevent another massacre.

It is past time to focus on concrete measures, on real prevention and necessary security. Some have lamented that much less harm would have come had only one administrator had a weapon. [http://www.wnd.com/2012/12/what-if-1-of-the-teachers-had-a-gun/#C4dmrr3Fekyzl4Re.99]But that idea may be bandied about too. And for too long.

That’s too bad. It works, out of necessity, in Israeli schools.

Now is the time for our leaders to act as leaders must; it is the time for our counselors to enable us to mourn and grieve and acknowledge our deeply wounded psyches and, especially, those of our children.

As for the rest of us who are numb and tearful, but desirous of expressing our sympathy, please consider joining me in creating a lasting and meaningful marker of Newtown’s terrible loss. Together, we can create a memorial forest, in memory of the Sandy Hook School, in Israel.    

What I hope we can do will be to plant ten trees for every teacher and student we lost on Friday. Please consider committing to that.

Our trees for them will grow and their growth will, hopefully, be a healing force, a guide for and a reminder of our thoughts and our prayers.

By doing that, our little ones and their teachers will never be forgotten.

                                                B.Koplen 12/16/12

And this: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/wap/Item.aspx?type=0&item=163169

a time for this...

Braid of sorrow        Knowing I’d be called on to eulogize Walter, our star part time employee for more than twenty-five years, I couldn’t stop thinking about what I should say at his funeral. Although none of his family had approached me, I believed that Paula, his take-charge sister, would soon call.

I didn’t mention my concern to my partner; she was too busy finishing an assignment for a demanding graduate course to be interrupted. She was in town for the weekend; hers had been a quick visit. Hours later, she would return to Connecticut.

Disturbing her was out of the question. Although I’d e-mailed messages to her, I knew she wouldn’t read them until later. Checking the Net was something she’d learned to avoid while studying. Even so, I wanted to share the news I’d just read about the tragic event in Newton. My shock at hearing about the senseless killing of tiny children was only lessened by distance; I was hundreds of miles from the carnage. She lives thirty-some minutes from the scene.

Information was slow to come. By not reporting the number of children killed, Yahoo News had caused me to hope that the gunmen had spared all but the adults. When I found how wrong I was, I wanted to share that hard news. My partner knew that area too well; I feared she may have known some of the families who’d lost little ones.

Bound by a thicket of tragedy and sadness, I was briefly comforted by the distraction of a rush of Christmas customers. My partner worked diligently; I tried to do the same.

For a few hours until time for her to leave, I did that. When I pulled away from the store to say goodbye in the parking lot, I didn’t mention Newton.

Moments later, I was told there was a call waiting for me.

“Do you have a beige shirt?” the caller asked. I knew the voice, knew what the shirt was for. I told Paula that we had what she needed.

“Be right down,” she said.

Minutes later, she was. As I handed her the bag with a dress shirt to use for Walter, she asked a favor of me. “Will you read this?” she asked, as she handed me a laminated copy of a poem I’d written for Walter in December of 1997, almost exactly fifteen years ago.

“You can do it,” she assured me, although I wasn’t at all sure. If I didn’t choke up, I’d be surprised.

“I’ll make a copy,” I said, trying to sound confident.

“No, just keep it with you until the funeral on Tuesday,” she said. She was kind and seemed much less shaken than me.

I fumbled for a response. She didn’t hesitate.

“I must get these to the funeral home,” she told me, as she patted the handsome mint green plaid suit and the shirt I’d given her that matched it perfectly.

As she left, I stared at my poem, suddenly an elegy about the days when Walter had been a brassy drum major. For decades after completing high school, the flamboyant Walter had trained teen and pre-teen girls to be his high-stepping marchers in our city’s annual Christmas parade. Whites and blacks loved him for that; many hooted and cheered as Walter led his girls down Main Street.

The poem I’d written was about the first time he’d ridden in the parade. That day, he was a celebrity who sat in a kitchen chair in the back of a pick up waving at his fans. I’d mentioned that in the final stanza.

With a sigh, I put down Walter’s poem. I had to check a text message on my cell phone. It was from my partner.

It read, “I am devastated about the news of a school shooting in Newton, 35 minutes from where I live…I knew teachers and seniors in Newton. 27 killed by a 20 year old son of a kindergarten teacher…Awful! I am sick!”

She continued. “So sad and tragic. Thinking of the fear those little kids must have felt before they died makes my heart break and cry…”

Mine too. Mine too…

                                    B.Koplen 12/15/12

Hard to find...

How big?        “He needs them for his honor guard uniform,” one of the four firemen explained. All were in their early to late twenties. One carried the tiny iPod device that was being used to update information about our store. I mentioned that I live upstairs.

“That’s important,” said the lone black fireman. With a tiny pointer, he marked a specific box, then found SAVE.

“That’s it?” I wanted to ask, but didn’t. I didn’t want them to ask for a tour of my just-completed apartment upstairs. My store was too busy.

“You have a pair of shoes for him?” asked one of the white firemen. He was about my size, almost a foot shorter than the young black fireman who had reviewed my personal data.

“Size 16,” he volunteered. The youngest white firemen giggled. That didn’t bother the black man at all. It was easy to tell that they enjoyed picking on each other; also, I knew they thought that the real joke was on me. They knew I couldn’t possibly have such a shoe.

But I did. “Try this one,” I insisted. In a box big enough for a set of truck tire chains was a size 16 EE, a dress oxford shoe, exactly what they needed.

All the chatter and joking stopped. To their amazement, the white firemen watched as their black buddy slipped into his 16 wide right shoe as easily as an oversized Cinderella.

“Perfect fit,” he said, without a hint of humor.

“Please hold them for us,” said the young white man who had started the conversation.

“I will,” I said, as I waved goodbye. I didn’t tell them I was as shocked as they were. Indeed, I couldn’t remember how long I’d looked at those huge shoes and wondered whether they would ever be sold.

“Meant to be,” I told myself, thankful I’d acquired that convenient epithet for just about anything I couldn’t have expected. That’s when I glanced at the newspaper, our shrinking daily that I hadn’t had time to read.

On the sports page, there was very good news. Our own David Wilson, a Virginia Tech star who’d been drafted by the N. Y. Giants of the NFL, had performed like an All Star against the New Orleans Saints. He’d set a record that no one else had ever made!

I felt like cheering. Years before, I’d joined David’s parents to watch David play against Duke University in a Tech victory during David’s freshman year. The three of us spent much of the game discussing David’s future with Tech because he was allowed so little time on the playing field. We knew how good he was. Why didn’t his coaches?

That eventually changed. Some sports writers mentioned David as a Heissman candidate in his junior year. Then he ran like a Harley in a ten-speed bike race.

That’s why I wasn’t surprised to see him at my store the day before the professional draft was to be televised on CNN, the network that was flying David to their show that featured first round choices. David needed something to wear for the occasion.

“I’ll take these,” he said. His eyes twinkled; they matched his mirthful grin.

The pants, the ones he wore on national TV when he was drafted near the end of the first round, were pink. Bright pink a prankster might wear after doing a backflip following an NFL touchdown on Sunday.

That’s what David did. According to David Vacchiano of the New York Daily News, our David Wilson’s performance was unprecedented. How unprecedented? Take a look:

Wilson set a franchise record with 327 all-purpose yards and became the first player in NFL history with 200 kick return yards and 100 rushing yards in the same game. He also was just the fourth player in league history with two rushing touchdowns and a kickoff return touchdown in the same game.

(http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/football/giants/wilson-time-shine-article-1.1217101#ixzz2EnsTpyZR)

Cheering for David is something I’ve been doing for years. But, now that his pink pants have caught everyone’s attention, it may be time for me to suggest that David shift into something even more catchy, a color that suggests something bigger, even brighter.

Bright red next time, David?

         

                                                           B. Koplen 12/12/12

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New York City love poem

                                                                                  4:00 a.m.

Not too early to think about love.

Too early to do anything about it, to shave its bristles, to brush the night

off its teeth and tongues, to feed its animals’ hunger.

Still, love rouses me when you, its downy cover, shift and I

am bare to winter.  Loves wakes me then, and for a moment I am

in its cave; I shudder at our unlit world

too far from the wall switch that reclaims dimension.

You are gone; it doesn’t matter why. Love is the panic that grips me,

the patter and pattern of it that tells me I’m midway through

its final page or its last verse or the sheet of its music tossed aside.

I want to run to its curtains, fling them open, view

its embers, its lamplights and dust on its streets of Manhattan.

         B.Koplen  12/8/12

Past time to talk about this...

RAPE! Why didn’t you tell me?            Following an urgent telephone call, I sped to the mall. There I found my daughter unharmed but shaken. While with a friend at the mall, she had been flashed by a man she didn’t know. Along with a security guard, she and I looked for the culprit. We looked everywhere, but couldn’t find him.

I was livid; the mall had been one of my daughter’s favorite places. As we entered the security guard’s office, I held my daughter and blamed myself for trusting that the mall was a safe place. No one had ever given me a reason to think otherwise.

“Take a look at this,” instructed the guard, when we sat at a desk. He’d pushed a three ring binder at least two inches thick at me. In it were pictures of men who’d been caught, flashers at the mall. There were so many. Why hadn’t I been told?

Although that was many years ago, the memory of that alarming experience came to mind when a friend told me of a comment her niece, a recent college grad, had made about rape on college campuses. Almost flippantly, she’d said, “It happens all the time.”

We’d had that conversation when my friend had found that a man, not a student at her daughter’s university, had been staying, unreported, in a small dorm room that housed two girls, for two weeks. He’d stayed there without the permission of the other girl in the room.

Because my two daughters had graduated from college, I was thankful they’d escaped a similar experience. Still, I was shocked that it may be more commonplace than I had thought.

It appears to be a dirty little secret. But it may not be such a little one. That’s how I felt when I read this in a most unlikely magazine, Sports Illustrated’s 11/26/12 edition, page 64:

“…Seeburg was a 19-year-old freshman at St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Ind.; she accused a Notre Dame football player of assaulting her on Aug. 30, 2010, and 10 days later committed suicide in her dorm room…Notre Dame police didn’t attempt to contact the accused player until nine days after the alleged assault and didn’t reach him until five days after Seeberg’s death.”

Seeberg’s smiling picture is on the same page; so is her Dad’s remark. According to SI, he, Tom Seeberg, told the Chicago Tribune, “Ultimately, there’s a sense of betrayal.”

It’s impossible for me to say that such a loss as his is unthinkable. Like me, perhaps, Tom Seeberg wishes he had known, known to ask certain questions. On college campuses, what will our daughters encounter? How secure are the dorms? How many rapes have been reported? How many haven’t?

Such hard to ask questions should be answered before they are asked. I believe that now, especially after reviewing the following website:

College Campuses and Rape - Crisis Connection, Inc.
Every 21 hours there is another rape on an American college campus. 90% of all campus rapes occur under the influence of alcohol.
www.crisisconnectioninc.org/.../college_campuses...rape.htm –

Dare I question whether its information is factual? If you have a daughter about to enter college, would you? What follows are a few of the site’s most troubling points:

            Every 21 hours there is another rape on an American college campus.

90% of all campus rapes occur under the influence of alcohol.

Of the college woman who are raped, only 25% describe it as rape.

Of the college women who are raped, only 10% report the rape.

College women are most vulnerable to rape during the first few weeks of the freshman and sophomore years.

78% of the men identified (as rapists) were an acquaintance, friend or boyfriend of the victims.

Most rapes occur on the weekend.

                                             B. Koplen 12/4/12

                                               

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