March 23, 2021 … early Tuesday
It’s nearly 3 am … I’m allergic to the chihuahua on the pillow next to mine and scenes of Columbine are swirling in my head. I’m having PTSD flashes and the night is not going well.
Again.
We have had another mass shooting – and again, in Colorado. My heart is heavy and I am sickened again by the senseless and horrific violence that one person can bring on other humans.
Why?
This is so beyond my realm of understanding.
I’ve lived in both the Chicago area and the Denver area. Both places will forever be home to me. And when something happens in CO … it’s home territory and it’s exceptionally upsetting. I know people there. My kids know people there. I have family there – related or not. Is everyone that we know safe? How many people are up tonight, in complete anguish, because their answer is NO?
Twenty two years ago, on a peaceful April morning, two high school students who had concocted a plan to kill as many as possible at school – brought an end to 13 others and themselves after their rampage. As in a playground stand off, I want to point at them and shout, “They started it!”
I don’t remember mass shootings before Columbine. I can’t forget the ones after.
Still. Another. Again.
We think 15 lives were lost that day … but how many really were affected? How many MILLIONS remember that day? How many of those surviving students and faculty, now so many years later, go into panic mode if they burn something on their stove and the smoke alarm goes off? How many of them can’t go into a library or a cafeteria? How many family members and friends … neighbors, schoolmates and staff, community and team members and absolute strangers still think of those that lost their lives that day?
I know I do. And I, so naively, thought it would never happen again. And then it did. And it did again. And again. And then the Aurora movie theater killings happened and five months later it was Sandy Hook and six year olds were gunned down in their classrooms. SIX YEAR OLDS. I thought surely things would change then.
Surely our politicians would be brought to their knees knowing such innocence was slaughtered. Laws would be made. Things would change.
But they didn’t. It happened again. And again. And AGAIN. And then some upset teen shot up my kids’ high school, leaving one girl dead. Both of my kids had graduated by then – but we knew staff and students in the building that day. My kids lamented that the shooter came through the doors they used to go meet the Cross Country team. It was personal to them.
All of these shootings are personal to most of us. If you’re a decent human being – how can you NOT be affected? How can you not think – There by the grace of god …
There have been 229 mass shootings at schools, in the US, since Columbine. How many more have happened in places of work and worship, post offices, stores, restaurants, music venues, theaters and nightclubs … and now in a grocery store?
This is the second mass shooting in a week. A WEEK!
I have little faith that gun control will ever be a reality in this country. I’m all for protecting yourself – but no one … NO ONE … needs an assault rifle.
Something needs to be done. This isn’t okay. This can’t be our norm. What is it going to take so that this doesn’t happen … AGAIN?