Once upon a time, a man walked into a fire station. He handed the woman at the front door a note, left to his car, and opened the trunk to retrieve the rifle inside. He pulled it out and shot himself three times, to the horror of the woman at the front desk. She called the police and within seconds the entire area swarmed with officers in squad cars, on motorcycles, and in helicopters. Meanwhile, about a hundred yards away, several preschoolers were playing at the nearby park. They had just finished a trip to the library and were enjoying lunch and a sandbox. The kids asked their teachers what was happening, but the teachers did not know. In fact, they didn’t even know what they should do.
That was two years ago. Today, I returned to the scene of the crime. Back on the same field trip.
I wasn’t alone, obviously. But as I was surrounded by children who freely played on the jungle gyms, parents on the sidelines and engaging with their kids, I could not help but obsess with what happened two years ago. They didn’t know what happened. They didn’t know we heard the gunshots. They didn’t know we were frozen in denial about the situation as it occurred. And they don’t know how, years later, their teacher still feels like a complete moron for taking no action.
I have to remind myself we were never in any real danger, technically. The man killed himself and no one else. We had a three-hour active shooter seminar as a direct result of it. Our security systems received an overhaul. Overall, everything came out all right.
But it’s strange. Where do we go from here?
We just go. It’s life.
Simply Musing 