Half Mast

I listen to NPR as I drive the kids to school, as details of the mass shooting in Las Vegas emerge, as I try to imagine the lives altered, as I decide to change the station to bluegrass music-- but not before discussing the incident with my children.

Part of me wants to protect them from the headlines. Pretend we live in a world where it would be impossible for a lone shooter to murder over 50 concert-goers, to manipulate multiple firearms protruding from a window high up above the dancing crowd.

"Were there any babies there?" Olive asks.

"I don't know Babe, there might have been some babies in their Mommy's bellies."

"What about children. Were there kids there?"

"I don't know. It might have been a show for adults. I'm not sure if there were kids, but I know moms and dads and sisters and brothers and sons and daughters were killed."

Elias sits next to me in the passenger seat, not saying anything, looking down, but listening. I wonder what his questions would be if he had them. Does he worry over concerns he doesn't voice or does the complexity of the situation shadow him into silence?

"How many people were hurt?" Olive asks.

"A lot of people. The man with the guns is dead so he can't hurt anyone else. He shot himself."

Is this too much information for my seven-year-old daughter who draws rainbows and mountains and otters in her sketchbook at night? Does she need the image of a man with a gun pointed at his own head or heart?

"He probably didn't want the people to know it was him," Olive says.

As if he left no evidence behind when he took his life; and yet her understanding of his reasoning for turning the gun on himself impresses me, he wants to escape the consequences of his actions.

Brave enough to pull a trigger--to pull and pull and pull multiple triggers-- but not brave enough to witness the devastation left in his wake. Too cowardly to face the families as they find their voices from their various pits of despair.

I've been here before, sitting in a comfortable chair, trying to process the unthinkable loss of lives as another lone gunman opens fire on a crowd, in a nightclub, in an elementary school classroom.

I can no longer say its unthinkable, as bullets raining down on the innocent is a pattern that repeats itself in the great U S of A.

And what do we say. Why? How could this happen? What was his motive? Why, why why?

The blueprint for mass shootings has been penned. The tools remain accessible. Its a story that repeats like a drumbeat, the background noise of a country where the constitution is often misconstrued to protect corporations over citizens.

Where the greed of a few limit the lives of many. 

And where in every corner of every state, you will find people reaching out their hands to help another, where time and time again people join together, across divides, to rescue each other.

I explain to my kids that their flags at their schools will be at half mast as a way to pay respect to the lives lost.

The lively bluegrass music acts as an awkward transition between the news and the pause in our conversation as the rain falls on Resurrection Bay.

"Mom," Olive says as we turn into town, "What if there was a kid there who ran away when it happened but then she lost her Mom?"

I look at her worried face in the rearview mirror. I glance at my son with his eyes on his hands. I channel Mr. Rodgers and say: "Hopefully a lot of people would rush in to help. There are always more people in the world who help when something bad happens. Thousands upon thousands of helpers..."

 

 

Comments

[Valerie Demming]

It is way past time that we need stronger gun laws...

[Mr. Michael]

Where the greed of a few limit the lives of many. 

I think it's better to say "bad choices" instead of greed. Because of the bad choice of the gunman, this might unfortunately lead to new laws/ regulations about guns (including bump stocks). These increased regulation limits the lives and freedoms of everyone- even those who have broken no laws. It gives those who own and operate guns a bad name. All I want to say is that don't let one person's choice change your mind about everyone else.

[Christy]

I do think this individual made a horrific choice and yes actions like his give law-abiding gun owners a bad name. The greed I refer to is of the corporations who resist new laws and regulations that will improve the safety and thus freedom of the country. I believe in gun ownership and I think new laws and regulations are needed. We have to pass a driver's test and get insurance when we have a car, why not so a gun?