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In America, Sometimes I Only See Kids as Examples of School Shooting Victims
I don’t know how I’ll deal with the next shooting targeting children
My grandma’s great-niece and her family attended First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas. Yet on November 5th 2017, one family member felt sick and everyone stayed home — a miracle, as “virtually no one at the church was left unscathed” by the bullets that killed 26 churchgoers in the small building.
My grandma, 1,500 miles away, was contacted by the media for her input. And while my grandma had visited her sister there several times and was as helpful in her answers as she could be, she had never even lived in Sutherland Springs or regularly attended church services at First Baptist.
With the community’s tiny population of 600, perhaps media writers felt they had limited people they could contact. And no doubt they were comprehensive in covering a national tragedy.
Still, my grandma’s contributions being sought after felt metaphorical to me. How we grasp at every thread to try to make sense of the senseless in events like these.
I tried to write a piece on gun violence several months ago, when working with incoming first-graders at a day camp. As I had been for many years working in…
