The Week of Two Major Shootings

Tuesday, 12.11.12, it was a normal day. A normal tuesday. Got up, got ready, went to school, went to CAL, went home. In between going to CAL and going home, I learned that there had been a major shooting at my mall. The mall I go to the most. The mall that is near my house. The mall. Clackamas Town Center. The mall I get most of my clothes from. The mall that makes me happy when it is all decorated in Christmas decorations. It was shocking. I thought my mom was joking, so I went on twitter because that is a major social networking site. Sure enough, multiple to hundreds of tweets about the shooting. "65 shots. 2 dead." .... It was chilling, sad, shocking. Mostly weird because this happened in OREGON. The state I live in, at the mall I go to all the time. Clackamas Town Center is a great mall. I couldnMt wrap my head around it. When I got home, I immediately turned on the news. They had people describing where they were at, they had people on the phone, describing where they think or saw the shots being fired. I knew exactly the places and areas they were talking about. The cupcake cart, the Macy's. The food court. I know exactly where it was at. I think that is what has mostly blown my mind. It was a good distraction from homework. Scrolling through my twitter, watching the news. Reading posts on facebook, getting emails. It was hard to wrap my head around. I finally had to tell myself to stop looking at twitter, stop looking at the news and reading articles. I had to pull myself away, I was already obsessed with the event. I did my homework, relaxed and worked out Tuesday night. Wednesday, there was still buzz about the shooting. My classes talking about the shooting and me still trying to wrap my head around it. It's crazy. I think everybody was trying to wrap their head around it still. I finished Wednesday, normally. Thursday, I finished normally. Friday, yesterday. The finale of shootings for the week. Algebra 2, and Government were normal. I walked into French, in the middle of French class, I overheard some kids talking about a shooting in Connecticut, "They are just little kids." I heard someone say. Of course I was curious. So, again, I went on twitter to see if it was a recent thing, and what happened. What I read on twitter was more shocking then what I read about the Clackamas Town Center. A lone gunmam, going to an elementry school, killing 27 people, 18 are children. I immediately starting tearing up. I am a kid person. I love kids, I love babies, and someone who kills babies, I want them to suffer. I couldn't believe it. The whole day, everybody was talking about it. I went and had lunch at my mom's work. I was on twitter the whole time I was eating lunchZ reading articles. A delivery guy came up to my mom's work and I overheard my mom, a nurse, and the delivery guy talk about the shooting. I went to CAL, and we talked about the shooting a little bit. I went home, and decided to not think about it. I watched The Office, and did some homework. I got ready to pick up my mom and go to my aunt's house. At my Aunt's house, when my aunt and uncle got home... My mom, my aunt and uncle started talking about the conn shooting. I couldn't help but cry. I did start crying really hard. I kept thinking, "There are unwrapped presents under the tree for those dead children. Beds unmade, rooms with toys. They have grandparents and parents and siblings. They were young, and their imaginations were interrupted." And of course, this time of year, young children get very excited. Santa Clause, presents, cookies. All the fun things that you do at school during this time of year, like parties and fun Christmas crafts. I thought schools were safe. Especially elementry schools. I guess not. I am sure most of the children did not close their eyes while they were walking through that school and saw more than they could ever imagine. More than their innocent eyes could take. Those children could be scarred for life, literally. Their mind is now permanantly marked with what they saw. This was even harder to wrap my mind around than the Clackamas Town Center shooting. On our way home from my aunt's house, my sister was reading about the shooting on twitter. She read this one tweet, about how a 7 year old boy saw his best friend die. A 7 year old, 8 year old, 9 year old.... NO YOUNG CHILD SHOULD EVER SEE THAT KIND OF DEATH. The hatred, evil death. The only kind of death that is good is when you are 100, and you have great great grandchildren. You have traveled the world, and you have done really good things like charity work. You have lived and done stupid things in your life, you laugh about them. And then at 100, after that wonderful long life, you die peacefully in your sleep. That is the only kind of acceptable death. After my sister read that about the 7 year old witnessing his best friend being killed, my mom, my sister and I all started crying. We were crying all the way down the street to our house. My mom said, "I love you guys." While we were all crying and when we got to our house, she reached over and hugged us. We spent a little while in the car, and talked about it. It is just so crazy and sad. We went inside and I hugged my dad and started crying really hard. My mom told my dad that we were having a hard time. We were having a hard time. I sat down, and I was a mess. I started crying again. Lots of crying yesterday. My heart went out to those families who had lost their child, or parent in the conn shooting. I prayed for them a lot yesterday. I blew up my twitter with tweets about the Sandy Hook elementry school shooting. I am sure people thought I was overly obsessed... But I kind of was. I wanted to see what was happening next. Two shootings this week. It's crazy, shocking and so sad. I was talking to my best friend last night, my best friend Kenzie. We were talking about the shooting a little bit. I told her I was scared of going back to Clackamas Town Center. I was scared of going there... I didn't feel comfortable going there and she said that she didn't blame me, and the world isn't safe anymore. This morning, I was on facebook, and I found this video that was filmed in Clackamas Town Center. A giant flash mob that included the whole mall. They were singing religious Christmas songs. They had a real life nativity scene, and the people there just shopping chimed in and sang along. It was beautiful and made me really happy, so happy I cried happy tears. I showed the video to my mom and my grandma. The mall really needed that. It made me less scared of going to the mall. It was made me happy, and showed that there are decent people in the world. I just wanted to share my experience and thoughts on the two situations. God answered our prayers, and he blessed the mall. I am sure there have been lots of blessings for the Conn shooting victims and their families. America, the world, we all need God. Still praying for the families. This week was tragic, and hard, and very out of the ordinary, but as my dad says, "Everything will be ok. Everything will work out like it always does." And there is reason for everything. I really don't know how to end this post, but all I can say is, God Bless. God bless those families, and keep those families in your thoughts and prayers.