Questions I'm pondering

As we head into the week, these are the things that are entering my mind.

-Could something like this happen at my daughter's school? At my school?
-Will I be able to protect my students if something like this happened at my school?
-My classroom doors only lock from the outside. Will I be putting myself or students in harms way when I open my door to lock it?
-One of my classrooms is the first room next to an exterior door--does that mean we'd be the first ones hit?
-I have to think about what I'd do if I had 75 kids in the auditorium in this situation. 
-Will my students want to talk about this by the time I get to school? Or will all of their questions have been answered by then?
-Will I be able to get through rehearsing "Do Not Stand at my Grave" after school without totally losing it? 
-Will Lori's friends at school be talking about this? She basically knows that lots of kids "got hurt." I didn't want to scare her with details--she saw an image on TV of the firetrucks, so she thinks that there was a fire at a school. I wasn't about to correct her.

We are going about our normal routine, except that when the kids are napping, in bed, or I'm in the car the normal moments get interrupted by tears. I've lost loved ones and never been this affected. I guess all the people I have lost were ill or old and I knew that their time was near. Maybe it is because when your child is born, you see hope. You see their bright future ahead of them. You see them graduating college. Getting married. Having your grandchildren.

You don't imagine them being buried in the ground.You don't imagine having Christmas presents purchased and wrapped and then never be opened. This tragedy is making me visualize that for my kids, and it makes me so incredibly sad.

I'm trying to see the good things. The people that are coming together for the people who lost so much. How people are not just thinking about the victims and families, but are realizing the horror that this situation is for the first responders. My friend Liz posted addresses for the school and for the first responders so that people could send cards and good wishes. I saw another FB post that was talking about how another hospital's ER dept. sent Danbury Hospital's ER pizza for their staff. Those are little things, but they most definitely show kindness. That there is still good in the world.