Wednesday

This blog entry will be made up of several of my thoughts since yesterday's horrific shooting at the mall, but I couldn't come up with a title, so it will simply be titled "Wednesday". Wednesdays used to mean dollar margaritas at Julio's with "the crew" ... but yesterday certainly wasn't anything like those Wednesdays.

I'm touched and surprised at how many people contacted us yesterday to make sure that everyone in our family was okay. It seemed so surreal that people from North Carolina, Indiana, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania knew about everything that was going on. I was surprised that Adam's younger brother called to make sure we were all safe and was relieved when I told him that I had talked to his mom after the shooting took place. People have compared it to the shooting at Columbine several years ago. Even though that was a horrible tragedy on some level it seemed like a movie or a story that someone told me. Even yesterday's incident and watching our local news teams cover the story, it still didn't/doesn't seem real. I can't wrap my head around the fact that it happened at the mall where I take my kids for playdates with my good friend, Staci. Where I had so many of Alyssa's baby pictures taken. In the very store that I bought my maid of honor dress for my best friend from college's wedding. In the mall where Adam and I shopped for wedding rings.

I was reading some of the bystanders "stories" today and my heart was tugged when I read about a mom who was shopping with her pregnant daughter in Von Maur. One was on the 2nd floor and one was on the 3rd when the shooting happened, so they were text messaging each other that they were okay. I started thinking about parents who leave their older child in one department to look around while they go to another. How horrific to have something like this happen and know that one of the people you love most in the world is so close, yet untouchable and possible in grave danger. I was talking to my mom about that this morning and she reminded me of when we went shopping a few weeks ago when she and her friend Mary took the kids to a couple store while I went to another store to try on clothes. I tried imagine what it would be like to be in a situation like people were in yesterday knowing that friends and loved ones were there and not being able to hold them and protect them and know that they were okay.

And I don't understand how someone can be so angry at the world that they want to hurt innocent people before they end their own life. The guy's suicide note said that "now he would be famous" and he wanted to go "out with a bang". What's the point? What does it matter if everyone knows your name when you're gone? Is it better to be remembered as a horrible person than to only be remembered by a handful of people that cared?