A Note on Yet Another Mass Shooting

My eyes hurt from silent rage and a sleepless night. Living with the knowledge that so many of the people outraged and horrified by the mass shooting in Texas don’t fight for human rights and social causes or try to educate themselves on these topics lights my insides on fire. 

It makes me so, so unbelievably mad when I hear them complain. 

Yes, what has happened and will continue to happen will leave our community of humans feeling grief, loss, fear, and pain. Yes, they have the right to express these feelings but please use that grief, use that loss, use that fear, and use that pain to do something.

Just do something.

Don’t be a part of the problem. Fix the problem. Vote. Vote for people who care and vote for people who will fight for change. 

The thought that these little babies were almost done with school and ready to spend the next three months in their parents arms is unimaginable. And if you’re not hurting and mad at the realization that all of these parents will wake up for the rest of their lives to an empty room, empty arms, and an empty home, then get help. 

And it’ s not just the parents of the children and staff who have passed that are affected.

• It’s the family of the parents.

• It’s the staff who have lost a friend.

• It’s the little kids who are now grieving their little kid friends that they liked to play on the swings with.

• It’s the little kids parents who don’t know how to explain “death” and “murder” and “how to grieve” to a child.

• It’s the school district.

• It’s the town businesses who are used to seeing little squealing children and proud parents who in a matter of minutes have perished far too young or were robbed of their greatest loves.

• It’s the kids who graduated that elementary school who are now thinking, “that could have been me, I could have been killed.”

• It’s the students of the teachers and staff who have passed.

• It’s the people who are going to feel guilty for surviving while others did not.

I’ve been through this. I’ve gotten a phone call from my brother saying that there’s someone running around in his school, what was my school, killing people with a gun. I sat in classrooms and had the teachers who were hurt in the shooting and saw their students die in the room I used to sit in, facing the windows I used to look out of. 

And each and every time I see the words “mass shooting” I go through it again. 

The responsible thing is to leave links for action items to help those in Texas but I’m tired and I’m done. I’m really just done. 

Do the research yourself and get involved. Get involved before you get the phone I call did.