Where Would We Be?
Reflections on Uvalde and imagining how we could be
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Weeks ago, the school shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas took place.
Naturally, everyone had all kinds of emotions in response to this news.
Sadness.
Grief.
Anger.
Frustration.
Rage.
And so on.
For me, I was devastated by the news. My initial emotions were similar to how I felt 10 years ago when Sandy Hook happened, but it was a little different.
When I heard about Sandy Hook I was living abroad in Korea. I remember the day well. I had woken up early on a Saturday morning to take a train to Seoul for the weekend only to find out via social media of the elementary school shooting.
Normally when I took a train ride up to Seoul, I would read or listen to music or a podcast. But not that day. That day, I was overtaken with sadness and I could just not comprehend how someone could do such a thing to innocent elementary school children.
As a result, I found myself reading numerous news articles and reports to gather information to try to understand. Ultimately, this resulted in me gathering a lot of information about the shooter, his family, and the warning signs he was portraying for the weeks, months and years prior to this event. All that digging to understand what was going on at that time began to shed light on just how broken all the systems are in our country.
Fast forward about 10 years later….