Massacre

I have never known a world without a massacre being talked about every day. A new day, a new massacre. Many of which right here on US soil. Very few caused by foreign terrorism. A significant many caused by domestic terrorism. Domestic. Citizens of the country I live in. Citizens of my country. My country that I was raised to believe was perfect. Could do no harm. Could do no wrong.

I want to scream at the top of my lungs. I want to pierce the ears of every person on US soil that says their “pro-life” and then turns their backs to children being brutally murdered. School is supposed to be a safe place. A safe place to learn and grow. That’s what my parents, who have worked in Education my entire life, taught me. And that’s what I strive for as an educator myself. I am 23 years old. I was three months old when Columbine happened. I was a month away from turning 14 when Sandy Hook happened. I was 18 and barely out of high school when the Freeman High School shooting happened in what feels like my backyard.

When I was 19, I completed my AA degree and started working in a school that fall. The days leading up to actually starting there, I had a real conversation with myself asking “what if?” and “what will I do when that happens?” At 19 years old, I was deciding what sacrifices I would be willing to make working in a school. Would I be willing to sacrifice my life to protect the lives of my students? 19. 19 years old. Do you know how fucked up that is? At 19 years old, I made the decision, that if the time came, I would sacrifice my life to protect my students if that scenario ever became a reality for me. That’s the reality of the world I grew up in. Do you know how fucked up that is?

I remember doing lockdown drills in elementary school. The scenario teachers gave us was often times “active shooter” when we would ask about when actually having a lockdown would ever be necessary. I grew up watching the “active shooter” scenario procedures change dramatically. There is still times where lockdowns are appropriate in schools. But “active shooter” has become such a common real-world scenario that it’s had to have it’s own procedures created. It went from “turn off the lights and hide in the corner and hope they don’t know find you” to “when they eventually find you throw anything you can. Don’t run in a straight line, run in random directions, because a moving target, especially an unpredictable one, is harder to hit. And scream and yell as much as you can. Do anything you can to make it harder for them to hit their target. You’re probably a sacrifice at that point, but at least you can buy your classmates valuable seconds.” That’s the reality of the world I grew up in.

I’ve been working at this school for four years now. I would do anything to protect my students. These are my kids. They’re the future. They’re human beings who have the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. To know that it is very much a possibility that my school could be next. Columbine, Sandy Hook, and now Uvalde, to know there is the possibility that my school could join that list is terrifying. It’s heartbreaking. Heartbreaking to know that it would be my students, my kids, that could very possibly be the next perpetrators AND the next victims. I would do anything to protect my kids. I know I have many peers in Education who feel the same way. Hell, I’ve watched them die in the same massacres as children. Making the effort to save the lives they could.

Do you know how fucked up that is?

This should not be the reality I’ve had to grow up in. I shouldn’t have had to even think about the possibilities, the what ifs, and what sacrifices I would make days before starting my job in a school, a place that’s supposed to be safe, at 19 years old.

I have started to develop a career in firefighting and EMS. My passion is to help, take care of, and to serve living beings. I’ve had to load my students into the ambulance more than once. I’ve had to load their family members into the ambulance. My coworkers have seen me load their loved ones into the ambulance. To see them hurting isn’t pleasant by any means. These are people in my every day life that I care about. Another new reality of “what ifs” I face is from the perspective of both an educator and a first responder. If there ever were to be an “active shooter” scenario that becomes a reality at my school, I not only face the reality of what sacrifices would I make to protect my students, but I also would be doing everything I could to save their lives. The picture that comes to mind is from the episode of Grey’s Anatomy when there’s an active shooter in the hospital and doctors are watching their coworkers die right in from of them. Trying to save them. Imagine that, but in a rural school. I wear many hats every day, and because of that, this is a new, horrifying reality that I face. I’m not the only one facing this reality though.

I try to stay in the middle on things as much as possible. I’m human, not perfect. I try to remember that we’re all human, not perfect. I try to stay balanced. But the pendulum has swung too far. It takes a lot for me to be this opinionated on a public platform like this, but this is the extreme reality I had to grow up in, that could’ve been prevented. At least I was lucky enough to get to grow up.

I mean this in the absolutely most offensive way possible to anyone who continues to go on about being “pro-life” and wanting to “save the children” and then turn their backs to children being brutally massacred. Massacred in a place that’s supposed to be safe. If you are one of those people I just described, burn in hell. You can go to fucking hell and rot for eternity if you want to sit high and mighty on your righteous ass while lives are being slaughtered right in front of you.