In Sunday’s sermon I wrote of two teachers at Sandy Hook:
“I have seared into my heart the images from that other horror a decade ago, when firemen and policemen raced into the already unstable Twin towers. And now, I find myself thinking of schoolteachers in the same way. I think of Kaitlin Roig, who took the first graders in her charge into a bathroom, barricaded it, and then tried to keep them quiet. When she thought the gunman was coming, she realized all she could do was tell the children that she loved them very much. Because, she later reported, if they were going to die, she wanted those to be the last words they heard. I think of Vicki Soto, another first grade teacher, apparently also trying to hide her children when the killer came. There are conflicting stories. What we do know is that her body was found huddled over the children. Greater love. No one demonstrated what love means better than these two young women in the face of unspeakable horror.”
And now one more to the list.
This evening I heard of Principal Dawn Hochsprung’s death. She was in a meeting when she heard the first shots. She, the vice principal and school psychologist went to investigate. Seeing what was going on, she quickly flipped on the intercom system allowing the whole school to be warned, and then apparently without further pause, launched herself at the gunman, dying in her assault.
Love.
Ferocious love…
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