I keep thinking of the word broken. I think of a man. A woman. A person. If we knew someone who had all the things and all the wealth but some of their family was dying from a pandemic, and some of their family was being lied to but relishing every word, and even more of their loved ones were being gunned down for no reason at all, we wouldn't envy any part of their lives. Not their wealth or their cars or their big house. No matter the facade, they'd be broken. We'd break a little for them.
America, we're broken.
I was born in Longmont to parents who met in high school in Lyons. My dad's dad was a hellraiser and firefighter in Allenspark and his mom ran the mail route from the little mountain town down the South Saint Vrain to Boulder. Boulder was the city. That's where my grandma would eventually get her job as a secretary in the music department of the University of Colorado. She'd work there for decades. She was enormously proud of that job and that school. Upon her retiring there was a little ceremony where they presented her with a $10,000 bonus check for never once taking a sick day. In a slightly awkward twist, she refused the money and gave it back to the school. We always joked how that should count for tuition credit for one of her grandkids.
Those are the fond memories that, after people crumble—the shock losing its charge—are used to piece themselves together. That's what's left. Questions and stories. That's the receipt for going to grocery store at the wrong time. A quick stop in at Soopers and be right back.
Today I was walking through a restaurant when I glimpsed the TV. Active shooter. I looked for the location. Boulder. Boulder? Maybe it's, you know, someone who's just active but hasn't done much shooting. I was scraping the screen for details but we've been here before. There won't be any anytime soon and when there are, you're not any better off. No one is. We're all a rung lower. A slither down the ladder. When a population runs into an issue that threatens its existence, it evolves. Or at least all the species that don't allow money in politics.
I met my family at a table and felt that feeling. That Aurora horror. That Columbine drop. Where once you're at one place and moving through life with relative ease, and then you're deep. Fear flooding like mud up to your neck, but on the inside. You're going to know people involved. Christ, I need to call my aunt. Does she shop there? The press conference isn't for another two hours and that won't reveal much. It's a sickness. A fever chill and a tummy ache rolled into an icy core. Your kids are laughing over dinner and you’d join them but you're frozen thinking about true terror in a goddamn grocery store.
We all know death. My wife woke me up to tell me my mom's battle with cancer was over. About twenty missed phone calls had been trying to tell me about my dad and the freak accident. Anytime I see two or more messages I fear the worst. Their deaths were horrible for me and my family, and they haunt me every day. But brain tumors kill. My mom hurdled all expectations until there were no more to exceed. Both of my dad's professions as a logger and a firefighter were made of danger. It was part of his long-running paternal sermon that we might find him "squished in the woods some day." His actual words.
But to be picking up some things for dinner and getting gunned down. That's a wave of horror I can't quite comprehend. The loved ones seeing the headlines but still removed from it. Like my thirteen year old son who simply said, "Oh another shooting. That's not surprising." That's the hellscape we've created. One where news of bullets ripping through cashiers and teachers and moms getting snacks is as expected as sports.
They were torn from their lives, both the dead and those living. The latter trying to piece together a newly misshapen reality into a puzzle that will never fit. Fits of rage and tears and helplessness. Thoughts of impossible heroism. Saviors that could not save because death has a new name: random.
There will be get-togethers and fundraisers. Tributes and statues. Heroism the heroine for a country with a murder problem. Weak men without the fortitude to deal with their own reality shatter everyone else's. I'm down the road knowing I should be paying attention to what these kids are saying but I'm lost between here and Boulder. Between now and around three o' clock mountain time. When a Flatiron slab slid out from under our feet. The ground gone. People taken. Time burning onward. We're here, pulling ourselves together and knowing that any person in half the shape of our country would want to do something before it's too late. Again.