Fate accompli

And then, sometimes, karma just ... happens.

Fate or a benevolent God or just muscled-up happenstance smiles on a football spinning across a foggy night in Connecticut, and when it comes down a certain American town whose name you know has won the Connecticut Class LL football title.

The name of the town is Newtown.

Their boys won the title on a 36-yard touchdown pass, a by-God Hail Mary, on the last play of the game.

It happened on Dec. 14, which is a date you know because on that date seven years a young American man took a military grade weapon into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown and slaughtered 20 children between the ages of 6 and 7 with it. He also killed six teachers.

Then he turned the gun on himself, the coward.

Seven years later, to the very day, Newtown High School won the state football championship in the most dramatic fashion possible.

Fate or a benevolent God or muscled-up happenstance. Take your pick.

And, no, winning a silly football game hardly balances the scales, hardly makes up for what the coward stole from Newtown seven years ago yesterday. That left a darkness that will probably always cling to it in some form or fashion. It left broken hearts and broken families, and trauma that to this day no doubt continues to manifest itself in ways its victims can never anticipate.

But seven years after, something good happened to Newtown on Dec. 14. A football went spinning across the night 11 days before Christmas, and when it came down something of the season came with it. And a bunch of kids in blue jerseys and white helmets began jumping around and hugging and screaming their joy.

One of them, a linebacker, was Ben Pinto.

Seven years ago on the very date, his brother, Jack, was one of the 20 schoolchildren murdered by a coward with a gun.

I imagine there were some tears from Ben Pinto, as he jumped and hugged and screamed. I imagine there were tears from a lot of folks.

Tears of joy. And just tears, of course.