“Through the blackest night, morning gently tiptoes, feeling its way to dawn.”

— Robert Brault

Dawn always comes.

In different ways it comes, but it follows a tragedy, a miracle, a loss, a win, a success, or a failure. It’s the day we reflect on what happened. It’s when we gather our thoughts and reconcile the event with our daily lives. It’s a day to go on and go forth.

After yesterday’s tragedy at Sandy Creek Elementary, many will ask why. Many will ask how. Many will hunker down in defense of their rights. Many will cry. Many will want to do something, but know not what.

Fortunately, there are things we can do, right now, that will make a difference.

• Reach out and connect with someone who may be depressed, or isolated. Expect nothing. Give something.
• Listen more closely, with greater attention, than you ever have before – to your spouse, your children, your parents, or your neighbors.
• Strike up a friendship with someone whose politics differs from your own … and don’t talk politics.
• Find one thing that you do which contributes to the violence – anger at a co-worker, harsh criticism to a child, driving rage, lack of patience – and change it.

Do this without expectations, without conditions. Then do it again tomorrow. And the day after.

The day after an extraordinary event, our world has changed. We can change if we choose to change – ourselves and our world.

Today, we can make the day after, better than the day before.

Yesterday’s gift of time … Chaperoned my daughter’s dance last night. It was an evening spent doing my best, as one parent, to make sure that this day after was better than the day before.