Pushing Thirtyy

On Heroes and Angels

The recent massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School has rocked this nation to its core.  Unlike past mass shootings that have occurred in our lifetime, this one claimed the lives of such young, innocent victims.  This fact alone has made for a serious emotional communal state of being, and as is typical of human nature, we all want answers.  We all want to know how this happened and why, and what can we do to stop this from ever happening again.

There are so many debates, so many fingers being pointed, so many are accused beyond the gun man himself. It’s the guns, it’s a lack of safety precautions, it’s mental health, it’s the mother of the shooter’s fault.  It’s the media’s fault for sensationalizing it.  Someone has to be to blame so we know what to change.

The blame game has played out all across social media, with everyone expressing their opinions, their anguish, making up quotes or believing stories before the evidence was able to come out.  We have no patience for answers, not when children’s lives have been lost.

I was one of these people searching for answers, jumping to conclusions.  The one thing I didn’t do was to jump to solutions.  I still need time to figure out how to cope with this emotionally and what I can do as an individual to honor those lost.  I did a lot of reading.  I turned off social media, turned it back on to see if anything anyone said resonated with me.  I found things I agreed with, and things I did not. I read comments from hysterical mothers and aggressive anti-gun advocates.  I read the thoughts of teachers, and the stories of the heroes.  I studied the faces and names of the fallen, the heroes and the angels, attempting to etch them in my memory and not let the villain win this round.  I researched elementary school massacres and learned about the 1927 massacre in Michigan and its villain — a school board member — trying to understand the motives, the profile of this kind of evil.

But I didn’t jump to solutions because this I know to be true.  I know that there will always be evil in the world.  I know that evil will always find a way. I know that whether evil comes in the form of mental illness or just plain bad to the bone, it is something regular people, most people, will never understand but will spend their lives trying to.

I know that for every evil soul there are many more good souls, many more who want to protect, who will without question become a hero in a heartbeat to do what’s right.  I know that we lose many good people, perhaps more good than bad it may seem.  I know that there are those who are unlucky and those who are lucky.

But right now, I’m feeling pretty darn lucky.  Lucky to have walked the same ground as these heroes and angels.  Lucky to still be here.