I was a kid when a classmate was shot and killed. That trauma lasts.
That’s a huge number, and it only takes into account students and school-based incidents. Consider how that count grows when you start looking at other shootings involving children and the full scope of people affected by them.
.The phrase “ripple effect” is commonly used to describe how trauma spreads outward from random shootings, but it’s not quite the right analogy. When ripples end, calm resumes. The way trauma spreads from shootings seems closer in nature to how stains form when a black marker presses against a white napkin. The ink seeps, and even though it gets less noticeable the further it travels from the center, every part of the napkin it touches remains forever altered. That email I received about Blanca provided a powerful reminder of that. Three decades have passed since she was killed, and that news photographer still carries her shooting with him. He explained in his email that he was searching online for information about the incident when he found a column I wrote several years ago about Blanca. In it, I shared how it wasn’t until I was an adult that I learned the shooting affected more than our middle school. It fueled federal legislation and led to the creation of special law enforcement units.“I’m not even sure why I’m writing you,” read the photographer’s email, which he gave me permission to share with you. “I think reading this helps me by putting some kind of ending to this story. The overnight crew never had anyone to talk to about the things we experienced except each other so of course we didn’t.”As more and more photos of those children lost in the Uvalde shooting emerge, you might feel tempted to turn away. Please look at them. Mourn them. And then honor them by doing whatever it takes to make sure this doesn’t happen again.On Wednesday, I spoke to one of my former middle school classmates, Henry Hernandez Jr., who became a lifelong educator in San Antonio. I recalled him as a kind, caring kid, but he told me Blanca’s death changed him. He said it turned his empathy into numbness. “It went away when we came to school on Monday morning and saw her empty desk,” he said. “That’s when the innocence of my childhood left.” Lawmakers held the power 30 years ago to do something substantial about the country’s gun problem, and they hold the power now. “Everything we’re experiencing right now,” he said, “these are traumatic events that could have been avoided.” In the hours after the Uvalde shooting, before the names of the lost started to emerge, he posted on his Facebook page that he had relatives among the victims. “Keep my family in your prayers folks,” he wrote. “Two passed away. One in critical condition. Two missing. My heart hurts. … Everyone, tell people you love them.”
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