You know those “Questions Kids Ask” lists I post here after visiting third-grade classrooms with Luna? Those visits are arranged by a disability awareness program called “Educating Outside the Lines,” and every one of the schools they have me visit is located in…Highland Park, Illinois.
”Is your dog blind, too?” they ask. “Is it scary being blind?” “Do you ever go anywhere by yourself?” “Do you get sad sometimes?”
Luna and I at a school visit in Highland Park this past May. As always, lots of questions. (photo by Jamie Ceaser)
When regular radio programming was interrupted Monday to report a mass shooting at the Highland Park 4th of July parade, I immediately thought of those third-graders. “Please, please, please,” I whispered to whatever God might listen. “Don’t let any third-graders get shot.” The kids, their teachers, the school secretaries, so many of the people I meet during those visits had to be at that parade Monday. Highland Park is just that sort of town: bucolic, huge oak trees, birds singing, big parks, small shops. If you live in Highland Park, you go to the 4th of July parade!
I’ve been keeping an ear open ever since Monday for a list of those injured or killed. No seven-or-eight-year-olds. Not so far. But Highland Park is such a small, friendly community — everyone there has to know someone personally affected.
I thought of those third-graders all day Monday. Then again yesterday. And still today. When I get stuck on something like this, I turn to writing to help me think it through. So here I am. And I still can’t make sense of it.
Just heard that WBEZ-Fm has posted a list of resources on its web site put together by the federal government’s Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs to help children, families, educators, and community members cope after mass shootings. I am not a family member of any of those kids, I’m not their teacher, and I don’t even live in their community. But I may check that list out anyway. Maybe one of their suggested resources will help.
This is where we live: a nation that regularly declares itself the “greatest country on earth” and now needs an Interagency Working Group on Youth Programs to help children, families, educators, and community members cope after mass shootings.
How great is that?
Mel, I know exactly what you mean. In my first draft of this post I’d added something at the end saying that the fact the federal government put together such a list of resources says it all.
I don’t think you have to be a family member or have lost some one in one of these horrific shootings, know a person involved, or even been to the town where it happened (AGAIN!) in order to understand. Nothing about any of these shooting makes sense. They keep happening and each time our hearts keep breaking. It has to stop. If it doesn’t, who are we? I don’t want to be someone who accepts this! I feel sad.
Me, too. Thanks for leaving this comment, Kim.
Hope your 3rd graders and staff are safe. Unless something changes, it’s a matter of time before we’re all personally affected.
Beth, we could all use help right now. This is everyone’s tragedy and nightmare. Having gone to Highland Park with you makes all this feel even more personal. Know that you are not alone in what you are feeling.
Another senseless tragedy in our country. When will it stop. I pray for all families who lost loved ones in Highland Park, Uvalde, Buffalo, and every other community that’s been affected by a mass shooting. I pray that this will end, but unfortunately we need more than prayers.
It is all unbelievably horrible! I may check the list also.
Hugs to you, Beth!
Holding you and the Highland Park community in my heart today.
i like the Pause Reset Nourish link. Seems like all of us can use some help right now. So very heartbreaking, this world right now….on so many fronts. Thanks Beth.
Even those of us who know no one in Highland Park are sad and depressed. This gun violence happens every day. Maybe not mass shootings that make international news, but all the people wounded and killed every day. We live with a low-level anxiety.
The query by the children, “Do you ever get sad?” really struck me. Who can escape profound sadness over this senseless mass murder, and the long list of senseless murders preceding it, and which we have experienced now for years. The manufacturers of assault weapons to be sold to civilians and the politicians love money and political power far more than they have love or even basic human regard for our children. I never thought that I would become so disillusioned with our country and our government, but then in 73 years I’ve never seen such a state of corruption from each of the branches of government.
John
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