Shots fired

I have been sick about the grocery store shooting in Boulder, Colorado, since I read the news about it yesterday afternoon. I've been consuming news about it far more than is healthy; even reading up on the culture and city of Boulder. I've only been there a couple times, but I loved it, and found it so hard to believe a place like that would be the scene of a tragedy like this. A dear friend living in Denver let me know maybe it wasn't so unexpected; that Boulder has more problems than I realized.

I love Colorado; the Denver area in particular. I have had to spend a lot of time up there for my son's medical care, but I've also spent a good deal of time there for recreation. In fact, I'm going up this weekend for the first time in well over a year (the pandemic prohibited it without a significant quarantine upon my return to New Mexico). I'm still looking forward to the trip, to celebrate my beloved's 40th birthday. I thought we might trek up to Boulder a bit, as it's so close. But I won't deny my mind flashes on a tragedy like this possibly happening to us while we're there.

I don't like guns - never have been super fond of them. I grew up around them, and so they haven't been a strange or scary thing to me personally. But when I had sons, their dad and I decided we would not be having guns in our home, ever, while they were growing up. Adolescents are not known for level-headedness and calm, and also our family suffers mental illness on both sides. Guns make it far too easy to turn a temporary problem into a permanent solution. We did not want that on our heads and hearts.

All my children are legal adults now. And I still don't want them near guns. I hear so much about how if people want to do damage to others, they will find a way, and restricting people's ability to own guns will not stop that. But I disagree. Guns make mass destruction of lives so very easy, and so very impersonal. You don't have to look someone in the eye to shoot them. It takes such little effort to pull a trigger over and over, causing mass casualties in a short period of time. You don't have to assemble materials or learn about the science behind how to blow something up. Nope, you just walk in a store, buy a weapon, and 10 minutes later you're ending as many lives as you please.

During all these mass shootings...where were the good guys with guns? In Boulder, it sounds like he (a police officer) was one of the first ones killed. The thing is, the good guys with guns aren't stopping a damn thing.

And I cannot stop weeping over this. I'm so fucking disgusted over the lack of response to a problem that actually CAN BE SOLVED. But nobody wants to because it's more important to have all the guns and god their black little hearts desire.

Cut Short

Today would have been the 20^th birthday of one of my sons’ friends from his cub scout days. My own son will turn 20 in just a few months – and their days as Cub Scouts seem like not so long ago. Isaac, his friend, was murdered last year. I’m friends with his mother on Facebook, and how she has managed to go on, and even thrive, is nothing but a testament to her strength and that of her family. He was her oldest of 3 sons; I always felt a bit of kinship with her, being another mom of 3 boys.

 

When I first became a mother, the thought of losing my children as youngsters didn’t really occur to me. I had no frame of reference for it; the only young person I recall personally dying young was a classmate of my sister’s, who was lost to suicide during their senior year.

 

And then my youngest son came along with a set of health problems that often had me fearing for his life. Later, mental health issues affected more than one of my sons, and I feared loss in a different way.

 

Along my parenting journey, I’ve known a few parents who lost their children as teen in horrific accidents – a coworker, a fellow boy scout parent. And then our cub scout friend being murdered, well, that was definitely the most horrifying.

 

And so now, even though the youngest of mine is a legal adult, I still hold the fear. I still, most days, remember my tomorrows with them are not guaranteed. It may seem macabre or morbid, but not to me. To me it gives me motivation to make the moments count, to not put things off, to make sure they know how much I love them and how they make me who I am.

 

Happy birthday, Isaac. Lots of people remember you and wish you were still here.

 

Sebastian, Isaac and Quent