The death of innocents happens every day.  Every. Day.  It happens in a myriad of ways, each way bringing a torrent of emotions with it – anger, sadness, grief, fear.  These innocents die from abuse and neglect, from vehicle crashes, in accidents, and yes, from firearms.  

Every day I scan the headlines and read stories of the horrific things that people do to each other and it boggles the mind.  Have humans always been this way or are we just more aware of it?  Or are we as a species becoming more and more violent?  Are we so filled with hate, anger and fear that we see no other recourse than to take the life of another human? Or is it just the type of headline that people gravitate towards?

A year or so ago I had a discussion with a colleague about how hard it is for me to understand in this day and age, the type of hatred humans have towards other humans and her question to me was, “have you been living under a rock?”.  I was slightly insulted, but perhaps, in my little sheltered life in a little midwestern college town, I can hide.  A place where I can still walk into the state capitol building without going through security, a place where people leave their cars unlocked and running while they run into the convenience store.  A trusting place where most people work hard to treat each other with kindness and respect.  

I’ve been processing the death of innocents this week, thinking about this small town where I’m sure they trusted and knew each other, and never thought something like this would happen to them.  I’m sure as adults they practiced “what if” scenarios, in the back of their mind thinking, this will never happen here.  I get that, as I’ve had to prepare my classroom and practice with little ones for those same “what if” situations.  I’m sure the teachers in that school had practiced as well, but how can you possibly prepare for the unthinkable?  Are they too living under a rock to the point that they can’t imagine how a human being could do the unspeakable, especially to children? It has taken me almost a week to process this, I can’t begin to imagine the thought process of a teacher watching their students die in front of them and having seconds to figure out what to do.

The blame game and political games began almost immediately, each individual or group using the deaths of those innocent children and their families as talking points for needed legislation or cause for lawsuits.  Everyone doing their best to find the ONE reason this happened and placing all their energy behind that ONE thing, because, well, we’ve been living under a rock, choosing to see only what we want to see as the problem.  It’s mental health issues OR it’s guns and each side, rather than look for solutions, is blaming the other for not agreeing with them.  Others are blaming the shooter’s parents/family because obviously something wasn’t right.  That would mean that family is the only indicator of how a person comes to this moment in their life.  The only person who knows the real why is the 18 year old shooter and he’s not talking. Eighteen years old.

I don’t have any answers here and I’m certainly not going to blame anyone and start a major discussion on social media.  I’m a slow processor and it takes me a while to get my head wrapped around something so horrendous.  Not wanting to oversimplify either, I keep thinking about the importance of meaningful relationships.  Face to face relationships, not relationships through screens.  It is difficult but certainly possible to develop these relationships.  Every adult who has young people in their lives has the responsibility to make sure kids know they are loved, cared for, and listened to.  Is this the only answer?  Of course not – it has taken decades to get to this point, and it will take considerable time to turn things around, unless the adults in this country can get over themselves and their own agendas and think about the faces of those children running from that school in terror.  We need to look at these faces over and over again, otherwise we’ll keep this in the news for a little while longer until some other story takes over and we leave the families, friends and communities to pick up the pieces.  Until it happens again.

Some people are giving those who pray a hard time as well, finding yet another way to divide us, this time based on religious beliefs. Prayers are important and powerful, because those of us who believe know there is nothing more powerful than our Creator, but prayers in combination with the work of our hands and voices are even more powerful.  Perhaps by doing this we can unite rather than divide.  

Maybe we have been living under a rock, driven by the fear that sometime this could happen where we are and we just don’t want to believe it.  The truth is, the death of innocents will continue to happen until all the adults in their lives do something that matters.  What can you and I do together to start?