It's Tuesday.
I sit in meetings after work, planning the summer professional development offerings. "Restore, Reconnect, Rejuvenate." We’re attempting to create an opportunity for teachers, dragged out from the —last year— the least few years-- to try to find themselves again, to remember why they do what they do.
And then I refresh my browser and see the news. 14 children dead. 1 teacher dead. The shooter is dead.
Another fucking school shooting. Another 18 year old with access to guns. Another disenfranchised, angry, obsessed young man. Another one.
I pour a drink and I lay down on my bed, pull the quilt over my head, even though it’s too warm for a quilt. I lay there in the dark, breathing in my own carbon dioxide, and think about trying not to think.
I go for a walk later with my daughter. We talk about the shooting. 16 dead, plus a teacher. We talk about the fight at her school today that resulted in a kid being wheeled out in a wheelchair. We talk about the kid who insists on dropping the N word as he enters the room, and the kid who is so disruptive that no one can even begin to concentrate on the worksheet. We talk about her school year, her future, the debt she will accrue in college, the relationships she hasn’t had yet. I have managed to keep her alive for 15 years and 50 weeks.
18 dead, plus a teacher.
My son wanders down, pulls out a frozen pasta mix, puts it in the pan. He is watching some YouTuber, an obsession I will never understand. I tell him the news. Another school shooting. Fuck, he says. That sucks. He goes back to his phone, watching the latest takedown of Dr. Strange and the Multiverse. He is suddenly taller than me, his voice suddenly lower. His feet won’t stop growing. I have managed to keep him alive for 13 ½ years.
18 dead. 2 teachers. The math is fuzzy. The numbers keep climbing.
We sit down and watch a Thor movie. I can’t do reality right now. I can’t do real people. Superheroes are all I can handle, all I can emotionally lift tonight.
It’s a senseless tragedy.
Thoughts and prayers.
I tuck my own kids into bed, knowing that —no matter how hard I love them, no matter how many tools I try to give them— their lives are at the whim of some future angry, disenfranchised young man, some guy with a sense of futility, coupled with anger at being wronged, some guy with access to guns— their lives are not in my hands. I literally can’t keep them alive.
Tomorrow, the alarm will go off and I’ll get everyone up. Make coffee, make peanut butter toast, make oatmeal. I’ll remind my son to take his band uniform to school. I’ll hug my daughter and tell her there are only 12 days of chemistry left.
19 dead plus 2 teachers. Their summer vacation would have started in 2 days.
Tomorrow, I’ll thank my partner for recognizing that I just couldn’t face anything resembling reality. Thor was as deep as I could get.
Tomorrow, I’ll go to school and try to reassure my students that they are safe. I’ll email the counselors again about that one kid who scares me, with his angry eyes and his silence. I’ll email his mom again, begging her to get him some help, begging her for reassurance that he is okay. I’ll tell him I’m proud of him, that I see that he’s trying. I’ll try to make eye contact, to see into that darkness, to try to connect.
19 dead plus 2 teachers. Many more hospitalized. Tomorrow, the numbers will probably be higher.
It's Tuesday.
Thoughts and prayers.