11 short days before the biggest celebration of Children on this planet.
Now another day we will always remember where we were and what we were doing when we heard the horrendous and soul-destroying news of yet another massacre of school children at the hands of yet another nutbar. And another outcry against the crazy gun-culture upon which the United States of America thrives.
And the rhetoric begins yet again - and will go on endlessly, with little, if any, positive outcome. Asking Americans to give up their guns is like asking Christians to give up God.
But I am not here to join that diatribe.
I am here to remind us all that, for the people of Newtown, Connecticut, the healing has only just begun, and will be never ending. Yes - there will be grief, anger, denial, and, eventually, acceptance, but there will never be release. Don't believe me? Then just ask any of the residents of the small village of Aberfan, in the Merthyr Vale of southern Wales. There, on October 21st, 1966, a rain-soakened slag heap of black slurry, dug from the coal mine that dominated the landscape, slid down the side of the valley it had been piled upon, and crushed Pantglas Junior School, where the young children of the village had just finished singing their Harvest Festival hymns.
116 children, between the ages of 7 and 10, almost half the population of the school, died under the crushing power of that landslide, along with 28 adults - teachers and other village inhabitants. The political fallout from that tragedy is still going on - over 46 years later.
But that is not what I am here to talk about either. I am here to tell everyone who isn't part of that community that there are still those living in Aberfan, and those who have left since the disaster, that still suffer symptoms of what would called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and who have various levels of psychological distress - whether they be parents of lost children, husbands and wives of many of the adults who died there - but, most of all, the children who survived when their brothers, sisters and friends died around them. Even now, many of them still feel guilt that they survived when so may didn't, or feel that they could have done more to help, when, in reality, there was nothing that they could have done at that time to prevent what occurred. The prevention was something that should have been done a long time prior to the disaster, and, like at Sandy Hook Elementary School, the cure was already well known. And never acted upon.
The slag heaps could have been moved. The guns could have been restricted. In both situations, the danger was well known - and ignored.
So, we should expect nothing different from the survivors of Sandy Hook. Sure, they will look like they are coping and getting on with life, but, deep inside, the doubts and worries will already be starting to worm their way into the psyches of those fresh, young minds - such fertile ground for those memories. And even those who, like me, were never involved in Aberfan or Sandy Hook, there will be long-term changes in our realities - subtle but persistent - that will modify our behaviour in ways we don't anticipate. I mean - I was 8 when Aberfan happened, and never realised just how much it had impacted me, but, forty years later, I was suddenly inspired, and not in a subtle way, but in an almost manic experience, to write a poem - Aberfan, 21st October, 2006 - that detailed the events in ways I didn't know I had even recorded in my mind. For the short while it took to write that poem, it was almost an obsession with me, and filled my mind and heart in ways that made it a relief to complete the work - to get it out of my system! If someone who was hundreds of miles away from Aberfan, in a time when the only news was a 30 minute broadcast or the paper, with no internet or other means of instant communication, could be affected in that way, imagine how much more damage the exposure available to todays watchers, let alone to the victims of this tragedy, will perpetrate.
It is going to be a long, hard recovery for Newtown, Connecticut. Pray for them if you believe. In any case, love them and give them peace.
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