What happens once it's over? What happens once the time has passed and the mourning is no longer in our words, but silent in our hearts? What happens once a country has forgotten about the hateful and angry people that effected an entire community? Do we just forget?

For some people, they can't forget. As I sit at home, go to work or spend time with family and friends, I remember. I remember the tragedies. I remember the people's lives it affected. I remember that it could be me.

Tragedies like these may not directly affect me or people around me. But indirectly, it makes me rethink. I feel the need to be more cautious as to where I am and where I am going. I feel that I can't be in large groups of people or public events because what if someone gets offended by the acts that happen in bedrooms and behind closed doors and they take action on that offense? What if someone feels uncomfortable about the way my friends and family live, even though it doesn't directly affect them?

To think that someone might get so offended and uncomfortable about people happily living their lives that has no effect on their own, would feel the need to murder those people seems insane.

It's real.

And to think that people who were not directly involved in these tragedies are still affected by them, again may seem weird.

But it's also real.

So what do we do after it's over? What do we do when the media finds a new tragedy to plaster on the screens of our electronics? What do we do when the mourning is done, but the waiting and anticipation of a new tragedy is still awake in our minds? What happens when allies stop fighting for minority groups and, instead, focus on their lives again? The lives that most likely will never feel hate or ridicule, injustice or inequality, violence or death. What happens when people just stop?

In a case like Orlando, one of the worst mass shootings in the recent years of American history, people can't just stop. People need to keep fighting. Keep pushing the issue. Keep pushing for equality. The fight is never over. So for the people that stand outside of the communities that feel hatred, fear being unloved and know their oppression is real, please, keep fighting. Keep fighting for the people you love and the people you know need help. Because you never know when the people around you might be gone. All because we stopped fighting.