Hug your loved ones tight!

"You have to do something and you don't know what to do, you know? You really feel very helpless in this situation.  My thought is if we were all this nice to each other all the time, maybe things like this wouldn't happen."
Joanne Brunetti resident of Newtown, Conn.

To relieve the anguish of a heavy heart at the meaningless destruction of human life, the deaths of twenty very young children and their teachers, it helps to engage in small gestures.  They are small, but they are meaningful, they highlight a universal grief at death, at the death of innocent youth, at lives cut short by violence, and although they cannot lift the immeasurable grief they somehow give balm to raw, bereaved hearts.

Even someone from as far away on the continent from Newtown as Ottawa was spurred by his sense of loss and his wish to commiserate at close range, to install a piano on a sidewalk in the town to play music for the people of Newtown. "It was such a mood of respectful silence. But yesterday being Christmas Eve and today being Christmas Day, I thought now it's time for some Christmas carols for the children", he said.

A woman who had driven from Arizona to Newtown stationed herself at a town hall memorial to give Christmas cookies and children's gifts to those wishing to take them in the spirit in which they were offered, volunteering her Christmas morning to dedicate it to the memory of the lost.  "I guess my thought was if I could be here helping out, maybe one person would be able to spend more time with their family or grieve in the way they needed to", she said.

And consoling words came to those who attended St.Rose of Lima Roman Catholic Church when Rev. Robert Weiss said "The moment the first responder broke through the doors, we knew good always overcomes evil. We know Christmas in a way we never ever thought we would know it. We need a little Christmas and we've been given it. Today is the day we begin everything all over again."

And the piles of teddy bears and flowers were softly sifted with snow, as people from across the country hung ornaments on Christmas trees placed as memorials.  Police officers from around the state worked additional shifts to allow local police a day off.  While some of those first responders have fallen into their own place of dark misery, recollecting the events of December 14, unable to cope with the memory of the horror they witnessed.

Ana Marquez-Greene, 6

Joanne Brunetti, for her part, watched over the 26 candles that were lighted at midnight at Sandy Hook Elementary School.  People had signed up for three-hour shifts to make certain the flames remained lit throughout the day.  A stream of residents, some wearing pyjamas, relit candles that an overnight snowstorm had snuffed out.

The anguished, loving candle in the heart and soul of the families of the dead will never be extinguished.  Ana Marquez-Green's mother Nelba posted her message: "From a grieving mother on Christmas Day" on Facebook.  Recalling how she had given her daughter two hugs before seeing her off on the school bus on a normal, everyday trip that would take her away forever.

"I have a Christmas wish.  I want to live in a better America - one where our leaders are working collaboratively for the good of the people and the protection of children. Please! No More! Ya Basta!"