First, We Grieve

About a month ago, I went to an outdoor Garth Brooks’ stadium concert with more than 100,000 other people. The first thing I did when I got to my seat was scan for exits and strategically visualize how my husband and I could fit under our seats and still help others just in case someone started shooting.

The week before that, my family and I went to the Blue Zoo, a small aquarium inside the mall. It was an intentional family day, a few hours for the four of us to spend together before our busy schedules scattered us again. My goal was to be present, to look at my children, really look at their faces, and listen to them talk. I did that. I stayed present – after I scanned for exits, identified other shoppers in the mall and looked for anyone carrying a backpack, wearing winter clothes in the 95-degree heat or acting weird.

My daughter is getting older. She is a new teenager and asked me if she could go to the movies with her friends. No adults. Just friends. I didn’t even have to think about it. Nope. Absolutely not, I thought to myself.

“Why not?” she asked me.

Because people shoot up movie theaters, and I’m not there to check the whole movie theater and create a plan and get you and your friends out safely so you don’t become a mass shooting statistic, I said to myself.

“Because you’re 13.”

“But didn’t you tell me you went to the movies with your friends alone when you were 13? Don’t you trust me?”

I trust you. Just not the rest of this crazy world.

“Things were different then. They just were. I will take you and your friends to the movies. But I’m sorry. You can’t go by yourself.”

Maybe what I should tell her is about the uncontrollable fear I have about public spaces. That at any minute, in any state, in any city or town, someone with a gun could walk into a concert, a movie theater, a school and murder innocent people in a matter of seconds.

In theory, she understands this. Her school, annually, simulates lockdown drills where teachers barricade classroom doors, turn off the lights and the students practice being extra quiet. When my daughter was younger and still thought unicorns and sparkly T-shirts were cool, the drill was a little bit different. They played hide and seek with their principal, and they had to be super quiet so he wouldn’t find them. I can appreciate the school trying to preserve their innocence while the world continues shattering it.

I graduated high school in 1996, three years before Columbine. Three years before the world changed. Was it safer? I don’t know. We didn’t have active shooter drills. My biggest issue was my right sweaty armpit. Did my parents say a prayer every morning like I do as my children walk to the bus stop, asking for their safety at school? I don’t think so. Did they have other concerns? I’m sure they did.

I’m not blind to the narcotics of nostalgia, as historian Jon Meacham says. I know each generation looks back on their younger years and shines a light on the good while downplaying the bad. My parents described growing up in their Whitestone neighborhood in the 60s as late nights, safe streets and neighbors raising kids. For me, in upstate New York, it was country roads, latchkey afternoons, and parties in cornfields. I did not enjoy high school, but I did not – for one moment – fear getting shot at in school.

I found out about the shooting yesterday like everyone did. I didn’t process it until late last night and I didn’t start feeling it until this morning when I opened the refrigerator and found pickle pouches in the fruit drawer instead of the vegetable drawer and angrily threw the pouches into the vegetable drawer and collapsed onto the kitchen floor in tears.

I have scrolled Facebook, and I have seen people’s posts. Some are praying. Some are in shock, and some are angry – demanding legislative changes that have been long overdue. Some are angry about the people praying. Some are outraged about the proposed government changes. And some are revolted about the shock, calling it apathy. There’s enough social media blame and shame to go around. And I understand why. We all want to make sense of a senseless act and hold someone accountable for what is happening to our children, repeatedly.

I’m scared. I’m filled with a fear that I don’t understand, and I have no control over. I am heartbroken for those families and afraid mine be will next. I picture my kids at school and the thoughts get dark and frightening, and I have to stop. Because what keeps happening is that parents’ absolute, worst fears are coming true. And we feel like we have no control. And I know when I feel out of control, I get really mad about things like pickles in the wrong drawer. I want to blame. And I would bet a lot of money that collectively, our country is filled with a mass amount of fear and hurt. The world keeps moving. The sun keeps rising and setting but we are feeling so heavy today. So sad.

What we all have in common is that we are grieving. Just one week after a grocery store shooting. We are grieving. Again. We are grieving the loss of children and teachers and we are grieving the loss of our safety.

So if you want to pray, pray.

If you want to be angry, be angry.

If you’re in shock, and don’t know what to say, it’s OK. Be silent.

We need to grieve. In whatever way we need, it’s OK. Because at the heart of all this grief is fear. And that fear is real and it’s scary and we all want to live in a peaceful world, where at the very least, our children are safe at school.

Fear sometimes leads to anger, which for many beautifully human and purposeful people, leads to movement.

There’s an amazing quote I have heard that reads, “Justice will not be served until those who are unaffected are as outraged as those who are.” That’s where accountability and movement started for me. I looked at my corner of the world, and I started there. I looked at what was important to me, and started reaching out to the people in power, who had the ability to propose change in a way that might prevent this type of massacre from happening again. Maybe you start there. Start in your corner with your family, your neighborhood, your city, your state.

But first, we grieve.

May 25, 2020