I apologize for the length.
I live an hour from Boulder. I used to work in Boulder and was the case manager for its homeless shelter. My son went to a parochial school there during that time. I’ve shopped in that store. My son later lived and worked in Boulder. The beautiful Flatirons were a climbing spot for him. Boulder is inextricably linked to so much of my history and world.
I’m broken-hearted.
And I’ve been hearing since the minute this news broke about *the* solution to mass shootings. Colorado has been through this with Columbine, Aurora, Highlands Ranch/STEM, and Planned Parenthood. In this case, people also - just suddenly - had so much all-knowingness, before the shooter was even taken into custody or the casualties were known.
Disinformation was all over the place. The police were condemned for not immediately confirming the number of casualties, as if the desire of people on Twitter to have a body count trumped family notification and connection with support resources. Etc. Etc.
Spare me.
My observation in these shootings has been that people want to designate a *thing* as the cause, because if we can just proclaim it, legislate it, re-legislate it, regulate it, arm it, disarm it, treat it, or medicate it, we won’t have to be scared anymore. Even our altitude and thin air were cited as having such impact on our brains that we go crazy in Colorado from oxygen starvation. Whatever.
I can only say this. The heaviness in this area is palpable. These precious people are Gone. For no other reason than an individual decided to drive 20 miles from Arvada to Boulder’s Table Mesa and walk through the door of a grocery store and open fire.
I do not personally buy that we need to build another mental health clinic with a wider door, or create a better drug, or obsess over projectile circumference, or wonder if bullies are to blame. He planned it, he drove there, and he shot ten people - including a person in a car that he parked next to, and a man he shot in the parking lot, then stood over and shot again. And again.
I do not care if he has mommy issues, feels slighted, encountered bigotry, couldn’t get a date, or didn’t go to prom. He destroyed innocent lives, including those of the 10 families that have to suffer with this horrible trauma for the rest of what’s left of their own lives.
I have known and continue to live with deeply personal traumatic loss. And I know this about grief: It’s the experience of Absence that’s always present. Always.
So I only care about the victims and the families. I don’t care about the inner workings or thought patterns or feelings of someone who hunted, cornered and ambushed other human beings. Other than the perfunctory reference for the official record, his name is irrelevant. And his heinous crime, albeit so tragically far-reaching, is another unimaginative and self-pacifying act that these shooters all have in common.
I’m afraid to go to my own King Soopers today. I’m going anyway. This individual has caused enough fear in Colorado. And he’s now where he belongs and will never do this again.
