I dropped my 23-month old son, Eddie, off at daycare, and as I opened the door to leave the building, a man in a black t-shirt came through the door, and said, “Thanks. It was locked.”
And it was. Ever since the massacre at an elementary school in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 20 children and six adults were gunned down, our daycare, which is in a local church, locks its doors to the public. The school’s director now stands outside the front door of the daycare from 9:00 to 9:15 a.m. to allow everyone to enter. At 9:15 a.m., the door is shut, and you have to buzz the church administrator upstairs to let you in. I know this because I’m late almost every day, and the poor woman upstairs is forced to come down all the stairs to get me and my son. This morning was one of those days.
“Can I help you?” I said to the man, as if I worked for the school.
“I’m with the (inaudible), and I wanted to get myself a cup of coffee. Do you know where the cafeteria is?”
I knew there was a cafeteria down the hall from the daycare. It’s where I take Zumba classes twice a week. But before I could answer him, he was halfway down the stairs and heading for the inner door that led to the daycare. I went down the stairs after him and got to the inner doorway before he did.
“I’ll see if I can help you,” I said and opened the door.
The first person I saw was my neighbor, Meredith, who is a teacher at the daycare.
“This guy says he’s from a church group, and he wants some coffee in a cafeteria?”
“It’s all right. I’ve got it,” Meredith said.
“It’s okay?” I said.
“It’s fine,” she said.
I turned around and walked back out of the daycare. As I emerged at the top of the stairs and walked out of the building, I saw three vans double-parked outside that said Calvary Chapel. There was a caravan of them. They were volunteers, who had been working down by the beach, helping to rebuild the boardwalk in my town which had been badly damaged by Hurricane Sandy. For a few months now, these volunteers have been working tirelessly, deconstructing what was left of the boardwalk and then sorting through the debris, dividing them into piles of large pieces, which will be saved and used later, and smallpieces, which will be discarded. The man who had walked in the building was part of that group and had apparently walked in the wrong door of the church in search of coffee.
When I saw the vans, I cried for a moment, for the horror that befell those little children in Newtown, for the horror that at any time could come to my own child, and for the horror we now see when it’s not even there.
Caren–I feel the exact same way every single time I drop Ellie off at daycare. We also had a kidnapping of a 5 year old from a Philly public school this week. Thank G-D she was found safe and seemingly unharmed (who knows the real story), but the person who kidnapped her literally walked into a public school, told them she was picking up her daughter, went straight to the little girl’s classroom and just took her, and waltzed out of the building with no one stopping to question her. I am horrified that this is the reality that we know live in. I guess there’s nothing we can really do besides constantly stay vigilant and question those who care for our children that they are also being vigilant.
What timing. Met a friend for coffee today in our spot, which happens to be in Newtown (she lives in Monroe, me in New Milford so it’s kinda mid-way for both of us). I hadn’t realized the coffee shop is 2 doors down from St. Rose of Lima Church. We talked about how it felt to have our own kids in school on lock-down that day, and how, even though we wanted to, we were not allowed to get our own children out of school. After coffee, to purposefully avoid the part of Newtown known as Sandy Hook, I made a wrong turn and instead drove right through it. It looked the same but different. The huge sign that hung from that new restaurant in town that I’ve been to which opened Summer 2011 (“Hug a Teacher”) had a sign in the window saying the space was for rent. Still, I didn’t break into tears and when I checked the other faces at the coffee shop and in their cars as they passed by me in my car; nothing. I think we’re all in a state of shock out here. … not much more to say I guess …