By Michael Morse
In a small Connecticut town, a week or so after the 25th，我和堂兄坐在一起，庆祝我们所谓的塞尔维亚圣诞节。It’s a lovely day, a time for extended family and friends to share whatever is left of the holiday spirit, relax, break bread and carry on some of the traditions that my cousin, Dennis’s family took with them from the Orthodox Christian Church celebrations in Serbia.
对我来说，这一年度朝圣康涅狄格州更新了我，这使我相信我想居住的美国仍然存在。在城市环境中担任消防员/EMT的工作会损害您的乐观情绪，使犬儒主义属于乐观，并且需要定期删除犬儒主义。It’s only a few hours away, this picturesque town, the meticulous volunteer fire department, the library that has been there for hundreds of years, right next to the elementary school and the businesses that keep the town afloat coexist in harmony, and the people who live there love their little town, and feel safe there, and raise their families who tend to stay right there, for generations.
我们一起划了面包，在面包里，一枚硬币在等待着幸运的人，以拿走它的作品，因为那个人将在来年享受繁荣。我的女儿今年得到了它，我希望这种传统能够实现。一支整天燃烧的蜡烛，一个带有三个灯芯的蜡烛被红酒扑灭，饭开始了。
成年人有大桌子,the one in the dining room. The kids sat in the kitchen; at the table the adults wished they were at. Dinner was served, and we ate, and drank, and talked and laughed. When it was over, my wife and I sat at the adult table, joined by our nieces. There was just us, everybody else had filtered out of the dining room and were spread throughout the house, relaxing, enjoying after dinner drinks, or cleaning the mess. At the table we sat, and Christmas was over, and when somebody mentioned Newtown from the other room it was as if Christmas would never come again.
The two girls spent the day of the shootings inside classrooms that are located less than 50 miles from Sandy Hook. As I wrestled with my own demons as the events of that day unfolded, running errands, listening to news updates, shaking my head, pounding the steering wheel, ignoring horns as green lights turned red and I missed them, it never occurred to me what it was like to be a child in Connecticut as news leaked out, and fear rose, and the reality that things had changed for good seeped in.
The joy we had created during the day drained from their eyes, their lips trembled, their voices went low and they told us about their day. That day.
Their teacher was different, the older one explained; her phone became more important than the lessons. “Something is going on,” she said to her students, her eyes repeatedly drawn to the phone she had placed on her desk.
“She kept looking at her phone, and she couldn’t teach. We found out her nephew was at a school where somebody had a gun,” explained Madison, whose classroom I had visited three years ago, and sat with the third grade class, and read a story about firefighters for them. Who knew that years later, some fifty miles away, firefighters would respond to an elementary school for a different mission, one that nobody could have dreamed possible.
“From ten till noon my teacher didn’t know what was happening, nobody knew, who would live and who would die. She told us to go home and watch the news, that was before the officials told her how to handle things,” said Caroline, wise well beyond her years.
And my little cousins, nine and thirteen, left their safe little Connecticut classrooms when their day was done, and went home, where CNN and Fox and MSNBC plays all day, most days, and watched footage from the school a few towns over.
They told me every detail. The killers name, the kind of gun he used, how many rounds were fired, how Victoria saved her students, how the principal tried to stop the maniac, how they would have survived had the gunman come to their school.
Or not.
这个故事起初暂时流动，然后不受控制，就像一个深深的伤口开始缓慢流血，然后自由倒入，建立动力直到血液消失，受害者筋疲力尽。他们知道凶手杀死了他的母亲，知道她死在床上，知道他在学校的安全门上开枪射击，知道世界上所有的预防措施都不会确保他们的安全。他们想知道为什么一个二十岁的孩子首先拥有攻击武器，除了杀死人之外，他还可以使用它。
圣诞节结束了，我们的生活继续了，我们坐在餐桌旁，听了两个康涅狄格女学生讲述他们的故事。
听到人们在教室里度过的人的嘴里听到的，就像杀人地面一样，把我冰冷的骨头冰冷了，我在哭泣，雄辩地和英雄地说话时吵架，并以更多的感觉和原始的情感，我认为这是可能的。
那一刻结束了，他们的父亲回来了，他告诉他们他们说得很好，但这足够了。很明显，关怀和爱在家中有很多，女孩们能够以支持父母的能力来处理大屠杀，并希望能找到一些和平。但是伤口永远不会治愈。
The adults resumed their places at the table, and the girls went to play with their WII. They had some crazy dance program on and were mimicking the moves on the screen, and I heard them laughing over the music from the other room, and I tried to pay attention to our conversation, mercifully steered away from Sandy Hook, but I could not. All I could think of was the little kids that will never tell their stories of horror, fear, abandonment and pain, and how they would never dance.
但是我们的生活继续下去，塞尔维亚圣诞节一直持续到深夜，很久以后，我们把孩子们睡觉了，他们睡着了，梦dream以求。
迈克尔·莫尔斯（Michael Morse）, a Providence (RI) Fire Department member for 22 years, writes about his experiences as a firefighter on Engine Co. 2, 7, and 9 and Ladder Co. 7 and 4, as well as his time on Rescue Co. 1 as a lieutenant and Rescue Co. 5, where he is currently captain. He lives with his wife Cheryl seven minutes from his station, which, fortunately for him, is “worlds away.”
