Words don’t do you any good now, I know.
There’s nothing I can say to bring you any real comfort today; nothing to fill the gaping hole in your heart to replace what was ripped from you.
There are no words to make any sense of this or to undo what was done or to recover the priceless gifts you have lost.
I can only manage three words: I hate this.
I hate that Charleston wasn’t enough.
I hate that Sandy Hook wasn’t enough.
I hate that the Wisconsin Sikh Temple wasn’t enough.
I hate that Aurora wasn’t enough.
I hate that Oikos University wasn’t enough.
I hate that Las Vegas wasn’t enough.
And on and on and on.
I hate that it never seems to be enough for some people. No amount of death seems sufficient for, no carnage great enough, no loss too tragic.
“Now is not the time to talk about guns” they always say, “Now is the time for grieving.”
They said it the last time—and we relented.
And like we’ve done so many times before, we collectively procrastinated away the difficult discussions and the tough conversations.
We once again allowed them to rationalize why everything else was is to blame; everything except the one thing that screamed so loudly.
We again were slowed by power and politics and we allowed our national urgency to gradually subside.
We put off dealing with it all just long enough to arrive at the next news cycle, just long enough to forget how much it hurt to watch, just long enough to be fooled into thinking everything’s alright again.
And now once more, it’s again time for grieving.
And I wish I could tell you that it won’t happen again.
I wish I could promise that your loss will not be in vain.
I’d like to swear to you, that we’ll do all we can to make sure no one is ever standing in the shoes you now stand in.
But that would be a lie.
Because as much as it kills me to tell you, the cold, sad truth is: you too will soon be old news.
All the outrage and mourning and emotions which are now so raw will slowly fade way, not for you of course, but for us. As you walk through your horrible new normal, we will all move on to the next thing to temporarily steal our attention and grip our hearts and fill our coffee conversations. We’ll find something else to make us cry and pray and debate.
We’ll make big, audacious promises to change things and they too will become yesterday’s headlines.
And all too soon, there will once again be another shooting and another round of funerals and another set of photos of radiant, innocent young lives dimmed to soon plastered across our TV screens and news feeds.
And for a while there will be more talk shows and political posturing and more blogs and petitions, until they again say “Now is not the time to talk about guns. Now is the time for grieving.”
And we will relent again.
And one day a few weeks later, you may remember the heartbroken faces of parents and spouses and children trying to grasp such imaginable horror, and you’ll realize that we have all forgotten them too.
And you’ll reach out to them, and in useless, pathetic resignation all you’ll be able to say to them is: “I hate this.”
Until the next time.
