School children all

This morning I slept in.  I hardly ever sleep in.  I think my string of restless nights finally caught up with me.  I would go about my days but when I lay in the dark after saying a prayer that the families of those lost to this world in Connecticut would find comfort, my mind and heart would feel great pain and sorrow for those precious little first graders and sleep would flee and tears would flow.

I'm sure that most of us have thought of our family members of 6 or 7 years of age and can not comprehend their loss in such an abrupt, awful way.  There is no cognition or sense or reason for something like this.  The above picture is of my 2nd grade class at Park School in 1960.  I am the little dark hair girl in the center with six little girlfriends flanking me on each side.  I am 7 years old.  At age 7, I had never walked through a security device, learned my lessons behind a locked door, or feared walking by myself through the streets of small town Idaho.  It was a time of innocence.

I loved school.  I loved to read.  2nd grade was the time of my myopic decline and by the end of the year I wore eye glasses.  My biggest stress was the health of my teacher.  We had many a substitute that year as she struggled.  My biggest joy that year (and I called her "Joy") was my new baby sister Jolene.  My life was good and I got to go on living unlike those 20 little angels last Friday.

I know that their little spirits are in a good place and that the families will have their own little angel.  I pray that they will feel bouyed up by the prayers of others and that they may have the strength to move on.

My sweet mother wrote the names of all those she knew on the back of the photo.  Bless her.  I have such good memories of my time with these beautiful children.