Oct. 2, 2017. Every time it happens, I think of those kids at Newtown. The circumstances change, the body counts fluctuate, the excuses rarely do. Neither do the ghosts that visit me. Their class picture, along with their teacher and the others. I squeezed my kid extra hard and long tonight, because I still can. She was in kindergarten when Newtown happened. I'll never forget what she asked while we struggled to explain; "were they bad kids?"
I shed a tear or two; I wish I could say it was for the victims and the families in Las Vegas. They are far more than I can comprehend. It was a tear for my own numbness at yet another mass murder, and my apparent indifference, because if I haven't helped find a solution, after Newtown, the Navy Yard, San Bernandino, or Blacksburg, or any of the dozens of others that scar my memories in the last 20 years, I must be part of the problem.