Sometimes, There Are No Words

So we had survived the wedding. It was a beautiful ceremony, the reception was great, and we were officially married and ready to start our lives together. We had stayed the night at a Day's Inn in Sand Springs, and our intent was to leave from there to go on our honeymoon, which was going to be in Colorado. But early the next morning when we were going to leave, we hit a snag of some kind, and had to head back into Tulsa briefly to retrieve something from our apartment.

I don't remember what it was, but it did give me the opportunity to give the Queen her wedding present. She loves the Cherished Teddies figurines, and I had found a newlywed couple on top of a wedding cake music box that played the wedding recessional. She loved it.

She had given me a pair of cuff links that had built in watches; I loved those, but they met with an unfortunate end. You see, at the time and for several years, I had the unfortunate habit of leaving stuff on the roof of the car. Lost several drinks, some to-go boxes, and even my CD player hit the road at one point (but it was retrieved). These cuff links were left on top of the car outside a hotel when I drove off, thunking them on the ground in the parking lot. Didn't notice this until a couple hours later, and when I ran back, the front desk had the studs that went with the cuff links, but whoever had turned them in had stolen the cuff links themselves. These were somewhat unique, and I've never seen another set like them. I was rather upset at myself for losing them, and my setting of things on the car subsided considerably after that time. Anyway...

Once we got whatever it was I'd left, we set off to Colorado Springs in April of 1999. I give the date because it will be very shortly revealed exactly the time frame we're in here. You see, we were married on the 17th, and left town on the 18th. We got to Colorado Springs that evening, and drove around looking for a place to stay, eventually ending up at a Motel 6 or something.

Once we got settled, the Queen went in for a shower, and I was chilling out when the power went out in the hotel. Never heard of this happening before, but it sure enough did. Everyone was looking out of their rooms to see if there was any word of what was going on, but not much was known. About this time, the Queen thought the joke was so funny, and it was time to turn the light on (she was still in the shower). I let her know about the situation, and our only answer was to open the curtains to let in what moonlight existed and shut the door, so she could at least get out of the shower.

We endeavored to do as much as possible in Colorado Springs during the week we planned to be there, but the first thing we wanted to do was get into a different hotel. We tracked down a Howard Johnson that was more centralized and still reasonably priced, and ended up staying there the rest of the week. One added bonus to this place was that we got a copy of the newspaper every morning, so we actually knew what was going on in the area.

One thing I had wanted to do, but turned out to be not possible was see Les Miserables, which was playing in Denver the week we were there. Unfortunately, when I called the month before for tickets, they were already sold out completely. Oh well.

I showed the Queen around town for the most part on the first day. We hit some tourist places, but it was mostly just driving around. She loved the town. What's not to love? It's got great scenery. The air is pristine.

I took her onto Fort Carson, where I'd been stationed nearly five years before. It had changed a bit. The band room was gone completely. It looked like it had been demolished recently. It was a fairly quick trip on and off base. After all, you can't do anything on a military base without a military ID, so it was a tour and little more, but it was enough.

One thing I wish I could remember clearly was the sequence in which we did things, because we did a lot of stuff that week. We rode the tram up Pike's Peak, but couldn't get to the top due to there still begin snow at the top. We went through Garden of the Gods and marveled at the natural beauty. We went to Seven Falls. We went thru Cave of the Winds, where we got to experience the classic of cave tours: total darkness. I know the Cave of the Winds happened on Friday before we left because it snowed our last day there, and I do remember snow coming back to the hotel from there.

But there was one event that overshadowed us for a little while, and caused a few extra calls on my cell phone. It was Tuesday, and we had gone to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo followed by a drive through the zoo (which was wild) up to the Will Rogers Shrine of the Sun. When we got up there, there was a news report on about an incident in Littleton, CO, which is outside of Denver, some 70 miles North of us. The police were out at Columbine High School because of a shooting incident.

Yup. April 20, 1999 brought us the worst school shooting in American history, and forever changed the way we look at school security. We wanted to have children, and the thought of something like that happening at a school was horrifying. Twelve students, one teacher, and the two gunmen themselves died that day, and twenty-four others who were injured in the attack. You may recall I mentioned that we got the newspaper at the Howard Johnson we stayed at, so our honeymoon newspapers (which were the Denver Morning News) were plastered with the incident for the rest of our stay there.

We still have these newspapers, and they paint a grim picture of introversion and pent-up anger gone horribly wrong. Today, schools have a lock-down policy because of this. The school where the princesses go (and will go) had an incident just recently with a BB gun where the kids were rapidly shuffled in from recess and locked in the rooms. Some foolish kid from the school next door thought it would be a good idea to take that to school.

But it's still very scary, and don't misunderstand me, we had a blast on our honeymoon. We want to head back up there at some point so the girls can see the wonders of God's creation for themselves, but events like that don't leave you. It lets us know that we must be ever vigilant in paying attention to what goes on around, and teach our children how to watch for these frightening things as well.

We keep ours quite sheltered for their young lives, but we know that at some point, we'll have to open that last door and let them see just how bad things can get. When do you show them that the world isn't all castles and unicorns? When do you take that dream away and introduce them to the darkness that's really out there? I know for Rock Girl, the time is coming soon, and while I want to procrastinate on it, that won't do her any good at all.

When we left Colorado on Saturday, the blanket of snow from Friday was still on the ground, and while we didn't want to return to reality, we were also starting a hopeful new life. One with many thoughts from the previous week, but also one that we knew we would face together. No one has clear sailing, but so far, we're doing quite awesome.

Someday, we'll go back up there with the princesses. But we''ll make sure it's over the summer, so next time, we can go all the way up Pike's Peak and see what the world looks like from God's point of view.