This past weekend was difficult for me. There was yet another shooting incident that took place at Brown University and once again I was terrified for a family member who is a student there. My niece has long dreamed of studying at Brown and with her hard work she was accepted and began her studies at the school this year. She was already blooming in the environment and studying for her exams to finish the semester. She was only days away from completing her coursework and coming home for a time to be with family for Christmas. The joy and accomplishment that she had been enjoying was threatened on Saturday when she had to lock herself in her dorm room while law enforcement swarmed the campus in search of the shooter who killed two students and sent eight to the hospital.
While I felt a small sense of relief in knowing that my niece was safe I worried about how frightening this must have been for her and all of the other students and teachers at the school. There is trauma for everyone in such a situation and sometimes that fear lingers for a very long time. The fact that the shooter has not yet been found only complicates that feelings that everyone might have. The worry and concern radiates out far beyond the campus as we attempt to make sense of the senseless.
It is said that more and more people have been personally affected by either being part of a shooting event or knowing someone who was present in such a tragedy. Sadly there are even those who have endured this kind of experience more than once. In my own case I know family members and former students who have had to hunker down and hide from a madman intent on taking lives. The incidents have happened at schools, concerts and even bowling alleys. Sometimes the shooter is taken down immediately and in others it takes days before he is finally found. The anxiety of being even remotely close to a shooting takes its toll on the innocents.
I have grieved all weekend not just for those who were killed or those who locked themselves in places that they hoped would be safe, but for our entire nation. What I know as an educator and a mother is that when the same horrid behaviors happen and again and again it is time to change the way we are reacting to them. Not all the locks and special windows and gun toting in the world has stopped this horrific trend of mass violence. We say we are working on mental health but the evidence seems to be that we have failed in that regard.
We are a nation of guns and great anxieties. We are so busy accusing each other of being the problem that we do not dare to find solutions that may be expensive and require massive change in our habits. A shooting happens and gun stores sell more arms and ammunition. We install bigger and better locks and hire law officers to walk through the hallways and streets but the shooting continues. We put bandaids on those who are mentally broken and stare in a state of shock when such individuals carry out their violence. We talk and offer prayers, which surely are needed, but rarely follow up with measures that may actually work. With each passing day the likelihood of yet another tragedy seems to grow. No matter how we much hide behind locked doors with an arsenal of arms we are not stemming the tide of violence that keeps washing over our nation. Instead we bicker and turn our backs on anyone who comes up with an idea that might inconvenience us.
I have heard about the lasting terror that lives in the heart of one of my former students. She laid in pools of blood while an assassin killed people around her who had come to enjoy a concert. I have heard the agony of parents whose little ones were killed on the last day of school in Uvalde. I often think of the young man who became a voice for change after other students that he knew were killed at Parkland High School. I know what a sleepless night is like from worrying about my granddaughter who was locked down at Bowdoin College while a madman was on the loose a couple of years ago. Now I once again have the sickening feeling of worry about who will be next and when my own turn might come without warning.
There have been seventy five school shooting in this year alone. We have almost become numb to the incidents and treat them as though they are simply a part of life. We get through the latest happening and move on until the next. Sometimes we barely acknowledge the violence or even make a joke of it when an elderly man is attacked by a man wielding a hammer. We are becoming more and more immune to the idea of reacting. We say a few prayers and hope that we will never be personally affected.
I honestly do not know if we will ever come together in a real effort to stop the violence. We might begin by insisting that those who lead us quit fomenting our divisions. We need to focus on the real dangers rather than those that make us believe that certain groups are universally bad. We need to spend the national treasure on this very real problem rather than building ballrooms and terrorizing mostly innocent people who came here searching for better lives. We should stop the furor over the tiny minority of trans people who are not hurting anyone. There are real issues that we are avoiding with an unnecessary culture war. We will not improve the situation by forcing everyone to have the same beliefs whether they be religious or political.
When we embrace the true message of Christmas we understand that it is up to all of us to work together and strive for harmony by truly listening and understanding each other. At the end of the day we all want to feel safe and free and loved. We are at our best when we work together and are willing to invest in keeping everyone safe. Each human is a child of God. This should be our truth. Empathy does exist and if we use it we will learn to tackle the real problems with a spirit of community. When we make life better for everyone it is less likely that anxieties will make someone so sick that he or she feels compelled to take anger out on innocent souls. Our cry should not be fight, fight, fight but love, love, love!
All It Takes Is A Little Love 