And Now, Oak Creek

The list just keeps getting longer.  The faces all look the same.

There's a haunted look peering out beneath turbans. It's all too familiar to me.  I see it in the mirror.

Someone took issue with something and decided to solve his problems with weaponry.

Regular people went about doing regular things and met bullets.  It's just not right.

I was doing better and better, figuring out where to put the Aurora feelings and then I got off the plane and read the headlines.

That little box in the corner of my self, the one that holds most of the hurt, the one I could keep mostly closed most of the time, that box isn't as little any more.  And the lid is harder and harder to keep down.

TBG reminded me later in the afternoon that, in fact, he'd tried to tell me that someone had leaked something to the LA Times about the shooter and a plea deal and the death penalty but that I'd begged him to change the subject before I went to sleep and so we talked about the Olympics.

What's big news in Tucson doesn't make the national or New York or Dallas/Fort Worth newscasts as far as I could tell from my perch in a variety of airports.  But my home phone has been ringing off the hook, the producers are looking for interviews and it's the news reporting on the news.  There are no facts available until the hearing at 11am on Tuesday morning.  We've been invited to meet with the prosecution before the public session, just as we have been every step of the way.  In that meeting, facts will be revealed.  Until then, I'm not fanning the flames.  Nothing is truly known.  The process has not proceeded.  What is there to say?

And what does it matter, anyway?  Innocents were murdered today, and last month, and by my side in Tucson nineteen months ago.  The facts cannot bring back their smiles, their attitude, their company.  Those of us who were there, who survived, share the knowledge that tomorrow is not promised.

There is more. There is always more. For now, join me in sending love and healing vibes Wisconsin's way, just as we did toward Colorado. I hope those religious celebrants know that all of us are sharing their loss, their pain, their sorrow.  This is, as I heard on CNN today, an American tragedy.

And I am left to wonder, once again....when.... when.... when will we say enough?