DAILY PROMPT: Ripped From The Headlines

Head to your favorite online news source. Pick an article with a headline that grabs you. Now, write a short story based on the article.

I honestly don’t have a favorite online news source. My favorite way to receive news is via an old fashioned paper, you know where you get to turn pages. But, I do from time to time come across articles that I enjoy online via Facebook. The Onion is news with a twist that never disappoints. However, yesterday was different….

I came across this article on the Inquisitor Noah Pozner’s Mom Describes Newtown Victim’s Body, And Why We Should All Listen. Within this article you will also be able to read the original interview by Naomi Zeveloff, which appeared in The Jewish Daily Forward. Ms. Zeveloff interviewed Veronique, the very courageous mother of little Noah. She poignantly describes what she saw when she viewed his body prior to the formal services.

“We all saw how beautiful he was. He had thick, shiny hair, beautiful long eyelashes that rested on his cheeks. He looked like he was sleeping. But the reality of it was under the cloth he had covering his mouth there was no mouth left. His jaw was blown away. I just want people to know the ugliness of it so we don’t talk about it abstractly, like these little angels just went to heaven. No. They were butchered. They were brutalized. And that is what haunts me at night.”

Veronique’s methodical account of what she saw and why she needed to see Noah is raw. It’s personal, honest, horrific and necessary. She personally walks us through our own fears with dignity in this piece. This is not an easy read by any means, but listening to these horrific details is necessary in order for us to fully grasp the extent of harm that can be caused by these assault weapons.

I think Veronique says it best in this statement:

“I owed it to him as his mother, the good, the bad, the ugly … It is not up to me to say I am only going to look at you and deal with you when you are alive, that I am going to block out the reality of what you look like when you are dead. And as a little boy, you have to go in the ground. If I am going to shut my eyes to that I am not his mother. I had to bear it. I had to do it.”

We owe it to ourselves to do the same. Thank you Veronique.