I didn’t cry on my daughter’s first day of school, but I cried today. I walked her to the door and I hugged her and was so shaken the words “I love you” could only come out as a whisper. Then I told her that she was going to have a great day, knowing full well that I couldn’t be certain that would be true. I didn’t even make it back to the car before tears were openly flowing. Other parents saw me and their faces all said the same thing. They understood.

I will be holding my breath until I get the mid-day text asking how my day is going from my wife, a teacher of children not much older than those who were killed by a man armed with an AR-15 rifle at Robb Elementary School. I won’t breathe again until I see my daughter running around on the blacktop when I pick her up from her after-school program.

The entire day will be an anxiety-filled nightmare masked by the business as usual demeanor required to effectively do my job and lead my team.
And that’s when I realize my morning has become business as usual.

This is America in 2022.

The same America we had in 2019. And 2012. And 1999.

We are broken.

I do not own a handgun for personal protection. I have friends and family who do. I respect their right to do so and I don’t question it.

I do not hunt or shoot. I have friends and family who do and I respect their right to own firearms for this purpose.

But for the sake of all that is good and holy, why can’t we have a meaningful conversation about the role of high-powered, semi-automatic firearms in the mass murder of children? Of course, issues of hatred, racism, mental health are part of the complex puzzle of truly understanding and preventing as many of these tragedies as we can. But in the meantime, there’s an obvious first step. The time to take it isn’t now. It is long overdue.

We are burying children.

We are talking about “hardening targets” – talking about schools as targets as if we are in a war zone.

We have a large segment of our society so attached to their firearms because they are more afraid of the “slippery slope” of some government control boogeyman than they are the thought of children barricaded in their classroom by a madman watching their teacher and friends shot to death.

Imagine the last thing going through those children’s minds.

The terror.

The hopelessness.

The pain.

Imagine what the survivors endure.

The nightmares and anxiety.

The echoes of the screams of friends, colleagues, students, teachers they couldn’t help.

The questioning of why they were spared and the accompanying guilt.

Whether or not we are beyond repair remains to be seen and the decision ultimately falls upon us. If the comfort of knowing you have access to a high-powered firearm outweighs the discomfort of imagining this, then perhaps we already have our answer.

Thoughts and prayers are important and they matter – I firmly believe this. But if you simultaneously decry the absence of God in society while pounding your chest about how your rights matter more than another’s feelings, you’re 100 percent missing the point about what you are declaring is missing – empathy, compassion and understanding, key teachings of Jesus Christ.

Your prayers have to be backed up by action that doesn’t stand directly in their opposition.

We’ve been told time and again when it is time to act in these situations that the world is watching. I don’t care if the world is watching. My daughter is watching. When I look down at her, I know that she is looking back up at me.

What I do from here has to matter. Because the next time I look down on her I don’t want it to be in a coffin.

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An account has been opened at First State Bank of Uvalde for the families of Robb Elementary School. If you wish to contribute, make all checks payable to the “Robb School Memorial Fund” and mail them to 200 E. Nopal St. Uvalde, TX 78801. Donations can also be made through the digital payment service Zelle at robbschoolmemorialfund@gmail.com.