Chris DiNardo · @chrisdinardo1
14th Dec 2012 from Twitlonger
I got home this afternoon and wrote about today's events. This is really personal but I couldn't think of anything else to do.
I just got back from class and I’m physically sick. On my walk home, I called my mom. Just because. We caught up. I was sure to say that I love her at the end. I couldn’t reach my dad. He’s at a conference. I texted him. I’m not real close to my sister at all. We don’t talk much. But I texted her too.
This is my last day of classes for the semester. I have a lab project for my statistics class due by the end of the day. But I’m writing this instead because I have no idea what else to do right now. I’m distraught over today’s news, the news that I was fixated on while I should’ve been paying attention to political philosophy.
27 people were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. 18 children were among the victims. 18 children. 18 children. They were somewhere between kindergarteners to fourth graders. When I think about that, I think of past children I babysat. I think of my young neighbors. I think of the hundreds of kids I see walking down the street everyday. I think about the hundreds of underprivileged children I will be seeing this evening at a holiday party I’m volunteering at. And my heart can’t really take it.
I don’t cry. The last time I recall really crying was when my dog died a year and a half ago. Before that, when my grandfather died several years before. Maybe it’s because I fall into this macho-complex that I’m too much of a man to do it. But it was extremely difficult to compose myself in class today. I gritted my teeth. And continued to read. I continued to tweet. But then I stopped. Because I really couldn’t anymore. The words I continued to say were not for the public, to be disseminated on social media. I texted people I love. For no reason. Some I haven’t talked to in a while. But faced with today’s news, you begin to value how much life is worth and the people who have made it so. It’s the only worthwhile byproduct of such a tragedy. The rest is shit.
So let me just get this out of the way. You knew it was coming since it’s me. A man, maybe two men, walked into a school and opened fire. They had handguns and a .223 rifle that were never intended to be used to hunt anything besides human beings. Children. 18 children.
Our country has experienced so many mass shootings recently, particularly this year, that it’s hard not to become numb to it. And yes, I say “we” because the country as a whole is a victim. We feel the brunt of every bullet, even though so many feel so much more loss. Of family. Of their children. 18 children. But there is a loss of moral clarity when this happens and it is a problem that seems tantamount in the U.S.
More guns are not the answer. That’s for damn sure. There are people suggesting we arm teachers to combat this. I hold back tears for them. For their short-sightedness. For their inability to see the problem. Part of healing is rebuilding in such a way that we may be able to better withstand the same problem if it arises in the future. We can do this. We can help to prevent it. But we need a discussion. About culture. We desperately need honest and open discussion. Because our dialogue about tragedies like this is more regulated than our guns right now. And that makes no sense.
We send out thoughts and prayers. But we also have to politicize this. When we have the power to squelch ill-timed deaths and don’t, it ensures that we will be sending out thoughts and prayers again. Maybe for children. 18 children.
But here’s the thing. I don’t really feel hope that anything will change. The sickness is not just guns or mental health or the NRA or the Democrats or the Republicans. It is the summation of all of these. And the breadth of it often seems so big and daunting since it has become ingrained in our culture. And cultural problems can’t easily be remedied. They take a lot of time. And effort. Plus, there is a special variable – that which cannot be remedied at all. The problem of human evil. So we put it off. Because it’s easier to mourn and lament.
I don’t like mourning, though. I like joy. I remember the joy I felt as an elementary school student. I remember Little League and neighborhood football and family vacations and decorating the Christmas tree. I remember these and so much more. Today, those joys are magnified. Because others won’t have them. 18 children. And if you can’t bring yourself to stifle back tears, I understand. Let them fall.
I’m going to be going to a holiday party tonight. People will celebrate because ‘tis the season. People will celebrate because they’ve put in a lot of hard work this semester. People will drink because why not? I’m still really excited to go. There’s a girl I care about who will be there. She wasn't one of the people I texted this afternoon. I’m not sure why. I wanted to. But maybe I have to talk to her in person. Because all it takes is an event like this to realize not communicating feelings will be something I regret. So while people celebrate, this will be in the back of my mind.
27 people. 18 children. Massacred. Slaughtered. Murdered. I can’t get those numbers out of my head. I won’t be watching the news today. I can hear my roommate listening to CNN in the next room. I just put in headphones. Because I just can’t deal with the media treating something so senseless as if there is logic to it. Because there isn’t. My reaction is to go home, call people out of nowhere, disregard my work, and write some really personal thoughts down while trying not to cry. It’s anything but logical.
27 people. 18 children. 18 children. It doesn’t make any sense. It shouldn’t. Neither should our collective reactions. But as I pray for the victims and their families, I also pray we have a wide-ranging discussion about what brought us here. Because the only thing more senseless than today would be having to go through it all over again.