In an Instant We Learn and Forget Again: Life is Precious

Mike & Friends Blog

Donna Smith

Donna Smith, American SiCKO, is executive director of the Health Care for All Colorado Foundation

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December 14th, 2012 9:36 PM

In an Instant We Learn and Forget Again: Life is Precious

Nineteen years ago tonight I comforted my son, Russell, as he learned of the shooting that happened at his workplace. Five shot and four killed at the Chuck E Cheese pizza parlor in Aurora, Colorado, where he had just finished his evening shift. Marge, Colleen, Sylvia and Ben dead. Bobby injured. In a place where kids played among animated figures dancing and singing to pre-recorded tunes.

Tonight, so many more dead in a school in Connecticut. Little ones. Teachers. Oh my God.

Shootings of children, mothers, dads, brothers, sisters. It seems so hard to fathom for all of us. We are horrified, aren’t we? For how long are we horrified? And does the horror and outrage mean we try to create a more caring and safe society for one another – for our kids?

I don’t know now. Do we need to have assault weapons so readily available for easy use by anyone and everyone who gets angry and frustrated? Is that just? Is that necessary in our messed up society?

So many questions tonight. I have so many memories of Russell’s pain. December 14^th has never been the same for our family. Now, December 14^th will forever feel even more frightening for us and deadly and ominous and a terrible reminder of how remiss we all have been in making meaningful change to stop this violence. And all of us who have now been touched by this sort of terror and violence in our own communities are bound together by some sort of macabre strand of history we never wanted to know.

Violence begets violence. Hate begets hate. Peace begets peace. Peace, Russell Alan. Peace be with you somehow. Gather those beautiful children of yours close. Honor your brother, Dan, who is a teacher. Life is precious. We just don’t seem to honor that with our cruel and crazed society devoted to selfishness. Please know there is still love. And that is all there is. If only for an instant, there is love.