There is a process that we must go through when tragedy strikes.

When I first heard about the tragic events of the school shooting in Connecticut on Friday, I shut down. Every part of me went numb. It was too much for me to handle. I had to take some time to process it, sort out my reaction, and consider how much I could allow my mind to wrap around it. I was sick to my stomach. I couldn’t breathe.

My 3 year old was having a play date with his best friend and I had to keep it together for their sake. So I did.

I went through my day holding onto my strength as long as I could.

That afternoon at my first grader’s pick up time, I arrived at his school early, choking back tears and when he approached the car, I got out to hug him. I began to cry…but only for a few seconds.  Our embrace was disrupted by a school attendant who had to remind me that getting out of the car in the middle of the carpool lane was not permitted as I was holding up traffic.

I took the kids to get a banana split, and loved loved loved them as much as I could before dropping them off at their grandparent’s for the weekend. It was my birthday and I had plans to meet my husband for dinner.

I fell into my husband’s arms and sobbed.

I was angry, scared, sad and more. A part of me wanted to curl up in a little ball and pretend it never happened. Deep down I couldn’t stop screaming. I argued with myself on whether or not I should approach the subject on this week’s show. How could I talk about it when I could barely speak? How could I not talk about it?

As parents, we are universally connected.

The love that we have for our children is what binds us together across the globe and it’s the reason we can experience such pain and anguish even when we are miles away from the tragic incident. We are bonded to the parents who lost their precious children that day. We can’t help but feel their grief as if it were our own. We may come from different cultures, religious faiths and educational backgrounds. We may have different opinions about weapons, the government’s role in gun regulation, and who or what is to blame in the matter.

But make no mistake, we are aligned with one another.

This is not one of those issues where we can simply “agree to disagree”. Children have lost their lives, and their parents will never be the same. WE will never be the same.

We MUST come together to find a solution.

Tomorrow we will be addressing the tragic events of Sandy Hook Elementary School as they occurred and what we can do as parents to protect our own children moving forward.

Our Guest

Vivienne McNeny

While still fresh from her convent boarding school, Vivienne attended London University and earned a teaching degree in Child Psychology and Drama.  Both majors were put to good use later in her life when she entered the unknown waters of homeschooling but more immediately she left the capital City to paddle in the sea during her breaks while running her seasonal restaurant and bar in the Channel Islands where she also raced powerboats to add a bit of adventure to Island life.

When she flipped her boat she moved to Spain where she taught water ski-ing and wind sailing to tourists for a year until an American whisked her away to Texas, where she married her blue-eyed cowboy.  Things settled down for a while in the bible belt while Vivienne worked for Ticketmaster and added to the census.  Restless again she decided to join the homeschool movement while her children were still too young to object.  Here she dispelled the myth that homeschoolers were odd, surrendered her razor and embraced a lifestyle that celebrated jeux sans frontiers.  Her children graduated from college despite the fact that they were never chained to the kitchen table.

With that little project behind her she poured everything she had learned about home education into a memoir entitled, THE SOCIABLE HOMESCHOOLER, also the name of the radio show she hosts on Toginet.  Vivienne encourages like-minded parents, from all walks of life, to consider homeschooling as an heroic and viable alternative to traditional school.