Trying to pick up the pieces

I turned on the football game tonight. It's a big game, you know -- 49ers and Patriots. But the beginning was pre-empted by a memorial service in Newtown. I reached for the remote to turn it off; honestly, I feel full of this story, cannot bear another detail. Yet I couldn't. The president was speaking, beautifully. He looks older in the last three days, more burdened. Do I, too? I feel it. Don't you?

It was a wonderful speech, of course. But then presidents usually excel in these moments. They employ wonderful writers and these are moments to which wonderful writers are born. 

But never mind the writing. It was the president's simple recitation of the children's names at the end that hit hard. First names only, and you could hear anguished gasps in the crowd to many of the names. "They've all gone home," the president said. And the tears that began at my office desk Friday and welled up here and there throughout the weekend came again, hard and fresh.

Newtown. I'd never heard of it before Friday. I wish I never had now. Newtown; it's a remarkable name for a town, I think. It feels close to Anytown, or Our Town. Such an act of unspeakable evil really can happen anywhere if it can happen in a place like this.

This feels like 9/11 all over again to me. Too melodramatic? I don't think so. No, not as many deaths and not the international scope. Still, in some ways worse. Because it's about Us, not about Them. It's easy to declare war on Them, but what do we do about the rot; the hatred; yes, the terrorism when it's Us? Legislation might -- might -- help, but it doesn't answer those questions about Us. Not even close.

Who the hell are we? Don't you wonder too?

I Googled Newtown. It has a fascinating history, like so many towns in that part of the country. In was purchased in 1705 from the Pohtatuck Indians and originally known as Quanneapague. Actor Anthony Edwards has a home there. Famous director Elia Kazan lived there. So did Burke Marshall, who led the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division during the Civil Rights Era. One of my favorite authors, James Thurber, lived there. Olympian Bruce Jenner graduated from Newtown High School. And the game of Scrabble was developed there by town resident James Brunot. 

Of course, no one will ever remember any of that now.

After the president's eulogy, I took the dog out; the bells on the Catholic Church two blocks away started ringing -- 8 o'clock -- and it felt perfectly timed. It's not quite winter here, not by the calendar or by the weather, but it still looks like Christmas. I'm a sucker for both the secular and the religious celebrations of the season. A block away from where my dog paused is one of the most spectacularly lit houses in town. I love it, and we started walking toward it. But then we detoured, toward a Nativity other neighbors have placed on their porch for the first time this year; it's my new favorite, simple and spartan, much the way I imagine the scene might have looked over 2000 years ago. The dog and I walked across the grass and paused in front of it. I prayed quietly and cried some more. 

It looks like Christmas, but I don't know. I'm struggling to give a damn. Aren't you?

But of all the details and comments I read in news coverage over this weekend, I believe I was most struck by what one of Newtown's reluctant  heroes had to say, in an Associated Press report:

"Asked whether the town would recover, Maryann Jacob, a clerk in the school library who took cover in a storage room with 18 fourth-graders during the shooting rampage, said: 'We have to. We have a lot of children left.'"

Yes, we do.

The dog and I walked back home and through the door. I looked at the TV. Niners up 7-0. It's a big game, you know. I turned it off and went upstairs.