Parkland, Florida is the sort of community where people long to live. The kind of city where parents want to raise their families. The type of place where the schools are excellent and crime is low.
It’s not the tropical Florida most imagine with palm tree lined sandy beaches. But to many who live there, Parkland is nothing short of paradise with its open spaces and quiet, shady streets.
Parkland is a stone’s throw from our previous house. And Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is where many of our friends will send their children. It’s where many of my own local friends attended high school themselves.
As the events of yesterday unfolded, I went through waves of worry, sadness, despair, hate and much more. But they were merely waves. As my community was consumed by tragedy, I was not. As my friends hushedly discussed what had happened, I had little to say. As my family talked facts at the dinner table, I didn’t feel anything.
It’s hard to admit, but I’m one of those people that’s become numb. Or maybe it’s helpless. Even as chaos unfolded in my backyard, I felt little.
Maybe it’s because I didn’t watch or listen to the news coverage in an attempt to protect my children from the tragedy (a choice hubby and I have made many times over the years.) I refused to let it consume me, to let it take me from my children.
Maybe it’s because I don’t have it in me right now to allow more stress into my soul. Because what I’m dealing with in my own tiny world is already enough.
Or maybe it’s because I didn’t grow up practicing lockdown drills. I grew up living lockdowns.
Because as a 15 year old high school freshman, I sat in my orchestra class, huddled closely with my long-time girlfriends listening to tragedy unfold down the road. With all doors to the building locked and guarded, with no one allowed to come or go, I watched the teachers and staff as they tried to navigate something that hadn’t yet become a normal reality.
I went to my science class and sat under a lab table with people I wasn’t really friends with but with nothing else to do for an hour and half before we would be released to go home, there was not much choice than to pretend. I don’t remember what we talked about, maybe the shooting, maybe other normal high school stuff because we were blissfully unaware of the gravity of the situation.
I took the bus home and walked in the front door to see my sister, frozen in front of the TV. An extremely rare sight in the afternoon. She was a senior, days from graduation, editor of the school newspaper and always busy. I don’t remember exactly what she said when I asked if she was okay, but I know it meant “leave me alone” and being 15, that’s what I did.
I spent the next year watching as my home community recovered. I watched the coverage of Columbine’s first homecoming the next fall. As they came together to win the state football championship mere months after their tragedy. And again the next year.
I’ve seen a community be completely destroyed, and I’ve watched as it recovered. I’ve seen the good that’s come out of tragedy and the beauty that’s come out of hopelessness.
And so while I want these tragedies to end as much as everyone else, I also know that my South Florida community will recover and heal as my childhood Colorado one has. I’ve been a part of rebuilding before.
And while my feelings of numbness may be more of a coping or protective mechanism than a genuine reaction, I believe it is also an indicator of my ingrained optimism.
I can’t go back and change what has happened. I can’t fix the past but I do have some power to effect the future. I can help my community rebuild after this tragedy. I can teach my children love and kindness and caring for others.
And I can hope that other parents are doing the same and that their generation will be better than my own.
