An Empty Place at the Table - A Mother’s Wail

Michael Sefton, Ph.D.

A parent knows when something is wrong with their child.  They can see it and feel it simply by looking at the face of a son or daughter.  There is an energy one feels when looking upon your child’s face like when you come for parent pick-up in the afternoon.  The actions of Adam Lanza denuded all that is true and precious.

The inexplicable violence brought forth against children in Connecticut represents a new measure of evil that will stain the pallet of life forever for all who directly exposed.  The events of December 14^th leave us with an emptiness that scorches the threads of what make us each human.  The DNA of what we call family is a child’s place at the table of life.  A mother wails from the now empty place at the table. 

Can you imagine the unthinkable pain of suddenly losing a child at the hands of a sadistic, inhuman, malefactor.  The pain of loss is suffocating to those whose children are now gone.  Religious leaders and other experts know this.  There is nothing that can be said to relieve the suffering - except time.  A mother wails for her child from the terror and affliction through which they went before they were taken.  How can she go on knowing this?  Seeing this is unbearable and incompatible with life as she knows it.  Her place at life’s table too will be forever changed.

No parent should have to wait for news of a child’s fate and be forced to watch as terrified children are led from the safety of their school into a new reality where no one is spared from violence in these times that we live.  No parent should have to look at the photograph of their ravaged little boy or girl just to identify them for the    last time.  A mother wails at what she must do.  And the child-size coffin she must look upon in torment that contains her child and now contains her life.

We all wail for the children of Newtown and children everywhere who suffer the fate of misguided rage and one's forsaken mental health.  More should be done to understand the issues leading to the unconscionable violence causing unbridled pain and a mother's desperate wail.