I know the roads I would take to drive to Florida, the interstate that stretches from the Canadian border of Maine down to the southernmost point of the continental United States. I know that at the end of that highway is a school, a community, a state—grieving over senseless violence and loss.

And I know that between here and there is Connecticut, and if we were to drive to Florida, we would pass by road signs along the way for Sandy Hook. Whenever I see the sign for Sandy Hook, it seems too ordinary, somehow. Shouldn’t it be different? I expect flowers, a cross, a heart—something that says: still healing, tread lightly, be gentle.

There are times it feels as though we’re all only a stretch of asphalt away from heavy grief.

I’m sitting in a large gymnasium, filled with homeschool students and their parents. We come twice a week, have been coming for three years now, and this is the first morning that I looked for the exits and imagined, for a moment, the worst. How would I protect my kids in this space, should someone come in who was bent on harm?

How would I protect my kids in this space, should someone come in who was bent on harm?

The kids are playing a game called Elimination, but the rules change each round, it seems. Some children crawl or drag themselves along the floor, swiping their arms at those who are running around. They’re loud. Their chants and squeals rise to the rafters, bouncing off the concrete walls. They have no idea of the quiet anxiety lurking in my heart, just across the room. My nine-year-old takes a break from the game and comes to sit with me. He decorates my laptop and coffee cup with miniature sticky notes, doodle after doodle. Hearts with wings.

Later, I think of all of the ways that I am unprepared to address these things that frighten me, that make my heart ache, that leave me feeling helpless. I haven’t spoken any of this to the kids. It’s not that I don’t want to talk to them about how to stay safe in a scary world—it’s just that I don’t know how to explain what I cannot even articulate in my own heart. Instead, I send wordless prayers, more like pleas. As I drive, as I stir dinner on the stove, or as I wipe down the counters. I don’t even know what I’m asking for, only that I need to be asking.

Standing at the kitchen sink, I watch the sunset. Our window has a view of a baseball field and, beyond that, the flickering lights of a highway, and then the tops of the buildings in the city center. It’s childhood, it’s the bustle of moving from one thing to the next, it’s busyness and industry, it’s anxiety and hurt, it’s fear and joy, it’s life—enveloped in a soothing, orange and purple glow.

My nine-year-old, again, comes alongside me. He’s holding his latest artwork, what he and his sister have been working on as I’ve been distractedly cooking and cleaning. It’s a simple painting, two circles within circles. The bottom one is black with blue in the center, the top is black in the center, encircled by bright blue.

“It’s darkness and goodness,” he tells me. “And do you know why the circle with the blue outside is on top?”

I don’t.

“It’s because goodness wins.”

He places it, along with two other sheets of art, on the counter and bounces back to the other room. I look down at the pictures. The circles. The black and blue hearts and hearts with wings. Goodness over darkness. Sunsets. Love.

Wordless answers for my wordless prayers.