Something I can do.

Their cell phones pinged during hours meant for sleep – at 2:06 then 2:15 then 2:49AM. Some did not hear it, because they were dreaming. The messages said, “I’m hiding.” “I’m scared.” And worse. Words they could not bear to see when they woke up to a world gone horribly, irrevocably wrong. Words that will prevent sleep and dreams from visiting them for a very long time. Maybe forever.

There is no categorization for the pain they feel. There is no help in clarifying the distinction, if there is one, between hate violence and terrorism. There is no relief in winnowing down motives. Because they do not suffer the ache of having lost a category of person. They suffer the loss of a person they loved, a beloved child or partner or sibling or friend who left home to dance and will never return. This is an absence not mysterious or wistful - but brutal and wrenching and final.

Over the next few weeks (until we sheepishly forget, because it is so much easier than re-remembering), we will examine motives and dissect the hours between 2 and 5AM like gamers – backing up, trying again, recreating what should never have happened. And for some of us, this will be intriguing, something we cannot turn away from, a way to pretend control or prevention. For others, it will be a constant reminder that they are not safe, that there is treachery in being as they are.

It is our job, then, humble us, to remind these fragile people – by which I mean all people – that they are loved; that they matter just as they are; that we out-number haters (because we do!) It’s easily enough done: a kind word, a softened glance toward someone aching. Aren't we all aching?

Why should bullets rain out at the rate of 47 in a minute? Why not kindness - reckless, messy, sweetness spilled out upon strangers. I think I'm going to give that a go. That's something I can do. What beautiful eyes you have, sir. What a promising day.