On Tuesday, May 24, I was on a work call when I received news that another mass shooting had occurred, this time at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. As I scrolled Twitter on my phone, I started seeing hearts and crying emojis. My heart sank. Seeing them often means another school shooting.
As the death toll in Uvalde rose, I was transported back to December 14, 2012. Then, as I was settling into my work day, I was notified there had been a shooting at my own son’s elementary school in Sandy Hook, Connecticut.
I reversed my commute from the school to work in half the time, only to wait for hours, alongside the other parents of missing children, to see if any survived.
Jesse, my six-year-old son, was one of the 26 people killed that day. I can still remember driving home that evening, glancing back in disbelief at an empty car seat that had served so well to contain a bubbling, smiling first grader just hours before.
Of course there are no words to comfort those parents. Their lives have changed course, forever. They wake up each day, as I did, in excruciating pain. They will soon say good-bye, forever, to their most precious loved one; the child who was to grow to carry on their dreams of a peaceful and productive humanity.
