“Oh, Uvalde, So Much To Answer For”
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On the day that the shootings happened, I was on a flight bound for London.
I didn’t learn of this atrocity until the following day, Wednesday, when I arrived. While attempting to recover from jet lag, I was also trying to process this and I just…couldn’t. The more I read about it, the more images I looked at, it was beyond comprehension. It was beyond understanding. It was just…beyond anything that could ever possibly be conceived in a civil society.
As I’ve been away during these last few weeks, upon returning to this “country” I have been beset by immense overwhelming sadness: and I am but one of many. So much has already been written about the shock, anger, grief, sadness, the almost unbearable graphic descriptions of the children, the utterly inexcusable, destestable and overwhelming incompetence of the “police” that did absolutely NOTHING, that I am truly at a loss for words.
On the Friday of my first week in London, I sat outside in the garden of a lovingly restored Victorian house, surrounded by beauty, flowers, and the sound of birds and I cried. I cried for the children, I cried for the teachers. I cried for the classmates. I cried for the parents. I cried for the senseless brutality of a country that would allow such an event to happen at all.
When I was younger, I completely adored The Smiths (and Morrissey). I would often say to my friends back then and even since, that for every life situation or emotion, that there was a Smiths song that perfectly captured and evoked the associated feelings attached and while sitting in this lovely garden, I immediately thought of this Smiths song, and listened to it and cried even more. Although this song was written for the infamous “Moors Murders” that took place in England in the 1960’s, the lyrics still resonate, especially today.
I keep reading statements about “We, as a society, have to enact stricter gun laws.” Yes, we do, but here’s the thing: this should never even BE an issue to begin with. I read about how “We need to organize” and “Now is not the time to give up” but: when an individual (or group of individuals) have to basically plead/beg/expect their government to enact legislation that is really only common human basic decency, then something is very very VERY wrong.
