Some Thoughts on Last Night
On days like this, the pain can seem insurmountable.
I can't begin to fathom the trauma of going through not one, but two mass shootings before the age of 30. I can't imagine the amount of emotional fortitude it took for Vegas shooting survivors to go to the Borderline Grill last night—for them to ever go anywhere again after what they experienced at the Route 91 music festival—how hard they must have worked to try and live a normal life, to convince themselves that it wouldn't happen again. It was a statistical impossibility. Except it wasn't. And now these teenagers and young adults, whose only crime was liking country music, will carry this trauma with them for the rest of their lives—and those are the ones lucky enough to still have their lives. Thirteen were not so lucky.
The pain of last night's events is impossibly big, more than anyone should have to bear. And yet somehow, elsewhere in the world, there was greater pain.
Yesterday, the United Nations confirmed the existence of more than 200 mass graves in Iraq, representing tens of thousands of civilians murdered by the Islamic State.
Which, of course is nothing compared to the more than 400,000 and counting being killed by their own government in Syria.
One man was murdered last night in East Hollywood, beaten to death by three men with baseball bats. The circumstances and motive are unknown. I wonder what must break in a human being to make them capable of beating another human being to death.
Thirteen. Thirty thousand. Four hundred thousand. One. The number does not change the pain and the pain does not subside.
All there is to do is continue to live through the pain. Find consolation where you're able, reduce harm in the ways that you can. Take care of yourself, take care of the ones you love, and hold them tight for as long as you can.
I can't begin to fathom the trauma of going through not one, but two mass shootings before the age of 30. I can't imagine the amount of emotional fortitude it took for Vegas shooting survivors to go to the Borderline Grill last night—for them to ever go anywhere again after what they experienced at the Route 91 music festival—how hard they must have worked to try and live a normal life, to convince themselves that it wouldn't happen again. It was a statistical impossibility. Except it wasn't. And now these teenagers and young adults, whose only crime was liking country music, will carry this trauma with them for the rest of their lives—and those are the ones lucky enough to still have their lives. Thirteen were not so lucky.
The pain of last night's events is impossibly big, more than anyone should have to bear. And yet somehow, elsewhere in the world, there was greater pain.
Yesterday, the United Nations confirmed the existence of more than 200 mass graves in Iraq, representing tens of thousands of civilians murdered by the Islamic State.
Which, of course is nothing compared to the more than 400,000 and counting being killed by their own government in Syria.
One man was murdered last night in East Hollywood, beaten to death by three men with baseball bats. The circumstances and motive are unknown. I wonder what must break in a human being to make them capable of beating another human being to death.
Thirteen. Thirty thousand. Four hundred thousand. One. The number does not change the pain and the pain does not subside.
All there is to do is continue to live through the pain. Find consolation where you're able, reduce harm in the ways that you can. Take care of yourself, take care of the ones you love, and hold them tight for as long as you can.
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