It's Happened Again

 I can't stop thinking about the fourth grade classroom in Uvalde, Texas. I can't believe it's happened again.

Though I've been retired for many years, I'm still an elementary school teacher in my heart. For thirty years each Fall, I prepared for, opened my classroom door to,  and cherished a new classroom full of children for 180 days. They were my kids. 

Today my mind keeps going through my former students; the Michaels, Robbies, Seans, and Jasons, the Kates, Susans, Danielles, and Lauries. I see beautiful eyes, hear their sweet voices, and marvel at the ideas they might have in our calm and safe classroom. We had the regular fire and earthquake drills, the occasional bee or spider that threatened, but never an active shooter on campus.

Now I'm eighty, have no public forum from which to decry the gun violence, and I know so many people resent the phrase, "My thoughts and prayers..." but we must do something.

 "If you see something, say something," is a common sense plan. The shooter in Uvalde had posted pictures of his assault weapons on the media. Surely that red flag could have been reported to the town authorities. 

And, I still pray. There's a song by Katy Nichole I hear often at night when I can't sleep that says, "I speak the name of Jesus over you, In your hurting, in your sorrow I will ask my God to move. I speak the name 'cause it's all that I can do."