Crushed by the Loss of Innocence

We popped on the TV to check the weather and there, unfolding before our eyes
and ears was another senseless school shooting.  Surrounded by police, medics, FBI,
police dogs, sirens, helicopters, screaming and smoke, echoes of gunfire, terrified
teenagers with their arms above their heads filed out of their high school one
behind the other.  Stretchers were carried out to the temporary medical tent as
lock down continued with the search for the shooter.  Parents were on cell phones
with their children as the nightmare unfolded and soon the numbers of injured and
dead were announced.  I watched, transfixed, stunned, teary-eyed  until I could not
take any more.

Why does this scenario continue to replay in a continuous loop, month after month,
year after year?  I  was imagining the parents who had sent their children to school
that morning, February 14, a day dedicated to love.  Later they were called to the
morgue to identify them.   Families and friends are now scarred for life; not from war
or a horrible accident or a natural disaster but from being in school, in America!
Learning the facts about the shooter and the red flags with threats and actions only
make the situation uglier. 

The flags hang across the country at half-mast, a physical display of grief and a symbol
of the nation’s lack of action in making change to stop the slaughter of our youth.


(collages by Caron)