I can’t stop the tears these days after gun violence has rocked America yet again. Nineteen fourth graders dead. 19 families having their whole world rocked. 19 tiny caskets will be buried, most likely before their parents, maybe even before their Grandparents. 19 final outfits picked, final pictures blasted all over the news, and final memories to gut those closest to them for many years to come.
The two teachers that were gunned down did everything they could to save those children but were never given a fair chance. They died hero’s even if they will never know that. One of them had been married to her high school sweetheart, having had four children with her in that time. Two days later, her husband has a heart attack, likely from a broken heart, and leaves those children parentless.
The amount of children with horror stories that will rival anyone they will ever meet is mind-blowing. Children talking about laying on top of their dead school mates to keep them off the floor, or the fact that a flimsy curtain that hung around the area that they were hiding was enough to keep them alive.
As a country we already fail at handing PTSD in out Veterans.
As a country we are also already failing at understanding and handling mental health any better.
This isn’t political and shame on you and anyone else for hiding behind that sentence to make them feel better about doing nothing. There are some things that needs laws to change, however there are many things that can be done on a personal level, through volunteer services and creative thinking.
These minds will be now dealing with the traumatic repercussions that we see our wartime soldiers deal with, except they are 9 and 10 years old. I am not sure where the other grade levels were in the building but that doesn’t discredit their trauma either.
I am so angry. Heartbroken. Gutted even.
I know we all feel it. I know we all struggled to absorb the details and hear the ways it was mishandled so far. We all flash back to any other school/mass shooting that we last felt this way about. My flashback went straight to Sandy Hook since it was also young children, but quickly followed by so many others. Every one of us know what it’s like to be a young innocent child. We know what it’s like to be emotionally attached to other humans, knowing that we would never wish upon them the trauma of having anything to do with these shootings.
I am not political. I am unsure where I land on gun control. My world has been rocked at a insanely stupid age by gun violence, just like so many other have as well. However it is also correct that banning guns will not keep them out of criminals hands. This post has NOTHING to do with conversations about guns whatsoever. I will leave that conversation to people who have more at stake with this, and maybe not so negatively affected by gun violence.
Please spend time looking around to find ways to volunteer to help your local areas. America or not, we all need people. We all need mental health help, we all need to help our Veteran, our homeless, our sick and lonely neighbors.
You never know what’s going on behind someones eyes or what they are planning. Evil will always be evil, but perhaps reaching out in any way you can think may make them realize that kindness will always win. Even if evil will steal all the attention on the news.
Live life lightly 