I had just arrived home from school when my grandma asked if I had heard anything from my dad. I was puzzled by the random question, but calmly replied that, no, I had not talked to him for a couple of days. The second I said that she hugged me and asked me to turn the television on.This was back in 2007, when a 10-year-old me helplessly watched the news about the Virginia Tech shooting.
My dad left the country to do his graduate studies in Mechanical Engineering in 2006. He had been a student at Virginia Tech for around a year when the shooting took place. Although we tried to talk as much as we could, sometimes weeks would pass when we wouldn't hear a word from him as he was the only one able to get in touch with us. So, while there was a man shooting people on the building where my dad had most of his classes, I could not do anything but wait.
Nobody should go through the pain and desperation a situation like this brings. I was a child wondering if I would ever see my dad again, trying to remember if I told him how much I loved him the last time we talked. It had been almost five hours since I had arrived home when I heard my dad's voice. He was one of the three students interviewed by CNN after the attack was over. I cannot express how relieved I was to know that he was safe and, more than anything, alive.
We were lucky. But 32 others were not. This was the worst mass shooting in modern US history. That is, of course, until last week. By now, we all know what happened in Orlando, Florida on June 12th. 49 souls were lost in the most lethal mass shooting in the US. The damage, however, goes beyond the 49 people killed. It goes further than the friends and families... it affects a whole country.
Ever since Barack Obama was elected, he has had to address more mass shootings than host state dinners. Let's let that sink in. Mass shootings have become a part of American culture and there is nobody else to blame but ourselves.
We become the perpetrators when we talk, mourn, and then do nothing.We become the perpetrators when we cling to the Second Amendment instead of clinging to the lives of fellow human beings. We become the perpetrators when we blame religion instead of trying to fix a society failing itself.We become the perpetrators when we let politicians do whatever they want because of the money they get from pro-gun lobbies. We become the perpetrators when we post a sad emoji on Facebook and then move on.
We can move on, but think of the families of those who didn't make it. Can they move on? What about the survivors? Can they move on? Maybe, maybe not. Only time will tell. When we keep moving on, it becomes endless.
But I refuse to move on. I choose to fight this... And so should you.
