After the Shooting Stops

I first heard about a gunman on the campus of Michigan State University around 9pm Monday. Panic flew into my throat on a gasp. I know tragedy will find me, but not this. Not this. I called my son. Thankfully, he answered right away.

“I’m in my dorm with my roommate. We’re safe.”

I called him a few times more. From 700 miles away he kept reassuring me. He let me know as soon as the shooter was found. 

“I’m safe,” he repeated and I went back to sleep. In the cold light of day, the reality of what happened the night before hit me like a bug on a windshield.

On the way to visit MSU (St. Joseph, MI, March, 2021)

We found each other early in the morning. My youngest son’s broken voice explained that he had a meeting two Monday nights a month. Typically, they went to eat at the student union afterwards. It happened to be an “off” Monday. My charming, goofy son spent the night listening to the live police scanner as rumors came in of explosives outside his dorm room. He and his suite mate tried to configure themselves into what they thought would be the optimal position to mitigate an explosive blast with only a rickety desk to shield them. 

A shattering emptiness rang in my ear. We are the least of that gunman’s victims, and yet our trauma is palpable. Safety is an illusion, a lullaby we sing to ourselves in order to sleep. It always has been. 

On the other hand how are our children supposed to thrive under the threat of constant danger? All over the news there is talk about how much more frightening it is now than when we grew up, but it wasn’t safer then. At least in Brooklyn in the later quarter of the last century. It only feels that way to me because I survived. 

I carried spare money in my sock in case I was mugged, and a quarter stuck into my bra for an emergency pay phone. I walked home with keys wedged inside my fists so that I had a chance if I managed to get my attacker in the eye. 

If I thought someone was following me, I was trained to stand beneath an apartment building, look up and cry out. “Tony!” 

Chances were one would pop out a window, though whether he would help was a crapshoot. Either way, it didn’t feel safe.

In NYC there was a public service announcement that came on before the news. “It’s 10:00 pm. Do you know where your children are?” They had to teach our parents to keep track of their very own children. And to pick up their dog shit. They were different people with different priorities. Safety wasn’t even on their radar. But maybe that was only mine?

There were no phones to track me as I was “galavanting” inside unlit parks, beneath bleachers and adjacent to cemeteries. Kids like me found people and things that went bump in the night. Or they found us. Which made me want to hold my own children that much closer.

True, beyond the occasional drive by, I wasn’t in fear of being picked off by some brutally disgruntled prick who fancies himself a sharpshooter. Or doesn’t care. Or has TikTok. Or doesn’t like the current/former/future governments, or doesn’t give a shit that he has shattered people all over the world, stealing innocence and any sense of safety. We are sobbing. We are sobbing, but it’s only getting worse. 

Or maybe it just feels like that? It’s too hard to tell. Statistics are thrown around as if they can’t be argued with, but they’re as pliable as wet clay. We are more invested in the outrage than the solution. After all, the one with the most rounds, lives. 

No one is coming to rescue us—not the government and not the corporations who profit from chaos. I’ve been awed by the way my son and his friends have been caring for each other over the last bunch of days. They check in without bravado, allow each other space to grieve, and arrange for assistance when they can or it’s needed. 

One wonderful family took my son home with him for the night, rather than letting him stay on a campus turned crime scene. The locals are running events for kids who didn’t have the option of going home for a week. The Michigan State University family nurtured each other in ways that would make even Mr. Rogers proud.

My son and his friends strategized and hid, helped when they could and were stunned into reality. I promised to protect him, and he rode it out without me. 

Less than 48 hours after the first shots were fired, he was home, unhurt and supposedly safe. I finally got to hug him and resisted the urge to wrap him in Kevlar. His brother returned the night before from a solo adventure abroad, which I truly admired. Only I am so grateful it ended without incident. Or gunfire. 

At Michigan State, five other sets of parents cannot say the same. Three others never will.

I fought myself not to be too protective, not wanting to shed my anxiety onto them so they thought of the world as a dangerous place. I let them wander, even while I tracked their phones. They both know I do it, and still don’t mind making me feel better. 

None of that can protect them from an assault rifle randomly peppering a student lounge. This is their reality. I went through Kindergarten active shooter drills with them as their education began. For those of you who might have missed it, they barricade the door and run the five-year-olds into the closet.

They do not speak and they do not turn on the lights. Ssh, kids. Nothing to worry about here. That’ll keep you safe. You know, like duck and cover will save you from a nuclear bomb.

Schools might be the epicenter but the tentacles have spread. To shopping malls. And grocery stores. And concerts. And corners.

Let’s skip the fight about how we got here. It’s too exhausting and gets us nowhere. A dog, an owner and a leash. We have no choice but to resist when the other one pulls.

Without us noticing, the kids have found their answer in much the same way we did in the early days after 9/11. The best response to surviving a shooter’s mercilessly random aim, is tens of thousands of people swarming the aftermath like a fire brigade. One bucket at a time.