Grief

I heard about the Connecticut shooting at work.
I heard three people were dead.  Oh ok...another co worker shot up fellow coworkers.  Domestic issues gone wrong.
I was so very wrong. Very very wrong.
In this town in Connecticut, there are 20 sets of parents of first graders that are having to deal with Christmas presents, empty rooms, dirty laundry, and the loss of their child.
How do you go on?
I've cried myself stupid.
For my own sanity, I have not read a report, nor watched the news since Friday.  I cannot get on Facebook either.
I want to curl into a ball and sob my eyes out for parents that I don't even KNOW.  The grief is so striking...so painful.  I feel like I've been kicked.  I feel sad.  Sad isn't a good word.  I'm just hurt...
My Kiddo is five.  What the fuck would I do?  How would I go on?  How do you keep breathing?  How do you keep moving?  How do you not just die yourself?
I couldn't.
I've been to a toddlers funeral.  I still grieve for that child, and it's been seven years.  She was not mine.  I was not a mother at the time of her death.  But I still grieve.  Her parents have pushed through and are just wonderful people with very full lives for their children.  But I cannot for the life of me imagine having to push through.
I can't imagine the fear and terror these children experienced in that chaos...I cannot imagine their pain and confusion.
I just can't.
I flash to the face of my own child and the thoughts of what I would do.  I keep putting myself there.
My heart aches.  It just hurts so bad.  I want to get in the car and drive there and hug someone and say I am sorry.  So very very very sorry.
As I hug my fiesty child that has no idea this horrible evil ever happened.
My five year old.
With his presents from Santa waiting in the closet. 
And his dirty laundry strung everywhere.
And I am grateful that my child is safe and well, and happy. 
But those poor parents...those poor families...it hurts so badly. 
That town will never be the same.  How do you heal from that?  How do you ?
I have no answers.  Just grief for these parents.  The hopes that the news story will change. 
But it won't. 
And these kids are gone.
And the Christmas trees are lit.