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A Christmas to Remember

Contributor
By Contributor
December 23rd, 2012

The recent tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., sparked  Erin J. Bauman to write a poem.

Bauman, who is from Kaslo but now lives in Prince George, began sharing her thoughts of Facebook. She said the poem is her gift to those children, all the other children who die needlessly daily, and to the world to ease the pain caused by those deaths.

A Christmas to Remember

(A gift for the children who died at Sandy Hook Elementary School)

Twenty presents will go unopened.

Twenty pairs of feet will patter no more.

Twenty hearts have ceased to beat,

And we all ask: What is it for?

 

I say they died for money.

I say they died for greed.

They died for the lack of kindness

In this world that we desperately need.

 

They died for every person

Who chooses to do other than love,

Who chooses to ignore the messages

That come from around, below and above.

 

It’s not about gun laws, or guns.

It’s not about mental stability.

It’s about what we have chosen to value,

And how that is limiting our capability.

 

We see violence and hatred everyday

In the form of entertaining games and shows,

How can we not expect, at least a few,

To think this is really how it goes?

 

We make decisions based on capital,

All else, even life, be damned!

If these are the things we have chosen to uphold

How can we expect different from our lands?

 

It is time to remember we are a family,

The family of the human race.

It is time that we really learn

to care for, and share, our space.

 

It is time to learn to help a stranger,

And mean it when we ask “How are you?”

It is time to make each other everyone’s problem.

We’re a family, what else should family do?

 

So let twenty souls passing mean something,

Even if the changes are small.

Start with yourself, be kinder,

It’s better than doing nothing at all.

December 15th, 2012

Erin J. Bauman

 

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