I feel terrible I’ve procrastinated posting those follow-ups but here’s the reason why:
When something tragic happens I tend to bury my head in the sand. Not because I don’t care and I’m tired of hearing about it, but because I’m grieving. When Aurora happened I was working in a nursing home all day and every TV in the place was set to the news and all the residents would talk about was the shooting. I went home from work that night completely exhausted and on the verge of tears. All I wanted to do was bash in every TV in the whole town because every time I heard news of the shooting was like the first time hearing news of it. On top of it all subsequent news seems very insensitive to me. I’ve been avoiding my email and my facebook for the past week because all I see is newtown this and newtown that. And everyone speaks as if people’s lives weren’t really torn apart by it. Yahoo has constantly had their top story be something like “gunman’s moves show he didn’t just snap” or “Shooting: Who’s to blame”. Tragedies are splashed around the media right up there with “Kim Kardashian takes a dump” and I hate it.
I don’t hide because I feel less, if anything I hide because I feel more. I hide because if I didn’t then I wouldn’t be able to cope with it all. I hide because I feel helpless against the evil in this world. Because there’s nothing I can do about it. I would love to hug the parents and the siblings and let them know that there’s someone out there who cares and understands their situation. That life continues after the tragedy and that there’s hope for a better day. But I can’t. I’m just a pre-nursing college freshman who can’t even afford two semesters of college. When every fiber of my being is screaming “Go! Share the love of God with them!” reality is telling me “No.”