Imagine waking your kids up for school, not knowing it is the last time you will get to do so.
Imagine serving them breakfast, not knowing it will be the last of their lives.
Imagine dropping your kids off at school, not knowing they will never come home.
Imagine hearing the news that there has been a shooting at your child’s school.
Imagine a sick feeling taking root in your stomach as you hope and pray for the news that your child is safe.
Imagine the ache in your heart when you hear that your child was one of those who lost their lives.
Imagine the emptiness of having to make funeral preparations for your little one.
Imagine the pain you will feel for the rest of your life as different moments trigger that inevitable thought of what your child didn’t get to experience, or what they would have felt if they did.
Imagine.
Imagine.
Imagine.
Fortunately for you and I, we only have to imagine such a horrendous situation; for many families, this became a devastating reality yesterday.
This should never happen once, let alone repeatedly.
I was in the twelfth grade when Columbine happened. I thought a bit about how some of those kids that were killed were my age, but in the excitement of grad coming up, I quickly went back to my life without ever giving it much thought unless it came up on the news over the years.
Sandy Hook occurred in December of 2012. Just like many of my friends, I was a new parent at the time, and although I discussed the shooting and how scary it was to think about now that I had a kid of my own, I also reminded myself something like this was so horrific that it was still just a one-off. Just like with Columbine, I went back to my normal life soon thereafter.
In May 2022, 19 children and 2 teachers were killed in Texas. From what I’ve heard so far, they were in the fourth grade, just like my son.
Since I first heard about this devastating tragedy, I’ve been constantly running those “imagine” scenarios I mentioned earlier through my head. As a parent, it is hard not to, but like I also said earlier, you and I don’t have to…this isn’t happening to us.
We have the ability to show our support via social media. We will read articles, share the ones that resonate, hug our families tight for a few days and swear to never to take another day for granted, and then go back to our normal lives.
After thinking about it now, I think that’s precisely why things aren’t changing, it’s why this keeps happening over and over and over again.
We keep going back to our normal lives.
There was outrage after Columbine, but most of us were too wrapped up dreaming of our futures to keep up with it. After Sandy Hook, lots of people spoke up, but many quietened as time inevitably moved forward. It happens every time a horror such as this occurs – we get mad, we voice our outrage, and then, for lack of a better word, we forget. Things don’t change much because we revert back to our normal lives.
I think we will all agree that serious change is needed, not just in the United States, but in our global society as a whole. It’s not an easy task, but it’s one that must be undertaken.
I won’t even begin to try to figure out how that process unfolds, but I think I might know where we can start:
We can make a promise to not only ourselves, but also those innocent victims that we will never go back to our normal lives again.
Image: Last Lockdown Sculpture (Manuel Oliver)
