The Tragedy in Las Vegas| First Day of School

To say that I was giddy for the first day of classes would be quite the understatement. I got up hours before I needed to....

Pause.

This is when my phone went off with a breaking news line.

Yesterday morning I woke up, sang in the shower, brushed my teeth, got dressed, I even put my favorite perfume on.

Shane mentioned a story breaking in Nevada while we were eating breakfast but at the time there were breaking reports of a gunman at a concert.

Unfortunately, it didn't really register with me. I look back this evening realizing just how desensitized I am, and how many others, are to gun violence in the U.S.

I jotted down the start of this blog, went to campus, took a picture of the students entering and leaving the front gates, put it on the draft blog page and went to my first class.

By my second class my phone was updating every thirty seconds.

Between classes, I opened a news article from CNN, then MSNBC, then The Hill, and another, then another. I was nearly late. I just kept reading. Every part of my body ached with a terrible sense of loss.

It still aches.

This blog post didn't get posted yesterday.

Instead I came home, I hugged Shane, I video-called my sister and my dad. I told my family I loved them.

I answered my English roommates questions about gun ownership and rights. I tried to rationalize the irrational.

It didn't work.

These are real people and lives, not statistics, and bodies. There are individuals who won't wake up, brush their teeth, put on perfume, and tell their families they love them today.

I hope that rather than devolving into politics we fall into discourse on policy. That our legislators won't just stand before us and offer sympathies but rather provide solutions so that the America we love is not ravaged by the violence of unreasonable and terrifying gun use.

All of my prayers and thoughts go out to the victims, survivors, and their families.

You are loved.

The America I know weeps.

Psalm 147:3

Love deeply.