School Shooting

I had to comment on the school shooting. I had to. I come from a town that had a school shooting. I feel so bad for the families, the friends, it involves so many. How sad. I just don't understand. I guess the need for venegance, revenge??? Shit, take your own life FIRST. Not 30 something people that have no choice in the matter. I just don't get all the evil that this world has become....

I finished the book "Nineteen Minutes" by Jodi Picoult a week or so ago. It was about a school shooting. Ironic, huh? In 1997 there was a school shooting in the town that I lived and worked in at the time. I was at work in downtown Paducah, KY. My boss's husband was on the police force so we found out soon about it after it happened, before it hit the news. I didn't know anyone that went to the high school where it happened or the students that were killed or injured. Amazing though, because I only lived 20 miles from the school. The boy that did the shooting, his Dad had an office just a few buildings from the one that I worked at. (The Dad is an attorney). That is as close as it came to affecting my life. Michael Carneal, the student shooter, claimed he was bullied. Just like Peter in "Nineteen Minutes". All of it was just disturbing. The book, Peter, Michael Carneal, Columbine, Virginia Tech. I just don't get it. How do you become so angry that you want to kill people?? It's an evil world we live in. So much violence.

Wes and I were talking about the school shooting. The news was showing some footage of the shooter of V. Tech. Apparently he had sent NBC a package prior to the shooting on Monday of himself and a bunch of ramblings. Wes and I were watching this and he says "There is a kid at my school that one day, I swear Mom, he will do a school shooting." Huh? "There's a kid that gets picked on all the time. Kids call him gay and make fun of him. I really feel sorry for him." "Why do they make fun of him?" "Because he is really short and little and nerdy looking. He has a brother in the 3rd grade that is taller than him." (note that Wes is in the 7th grade in middle school that is 6th-8th grade) My heart is hurting for this kid. "Wes, please don't ever make fun of him. Don't do that. Can you imagine how bad his life sucks?? Do you know that on Monday, when he has to go to school, he would probably rather go to hell than have to go to school? Don't you look at him and think "Thank God my life is not his"? Don't be a part of that." As a mother, I want to go to the school and hold this boys hand and defend him or have an assembly and ask all these kids that pick on him "Why?, He is a kid that wants to be liked just like all of you. We are all different. So he's short? Big frickin deal. Lighten up. Take up a cause - make it him. What if your life sucked and you were him?"

I feel so bad for this boy that Wes knows, I guess it's the mother in me. Imagine how it feels for it to be 30. or 40 or 50. 50 people making fun of you. 50 people that say you are gay. 50 people that seem to hate you. So tomorrow I am calling the school and asking the principal "What are you doing for this boy?" "Are you aware that he is being picked on? Do you know what kind of damage it can do?" I am doing it because someone has to. It won't change anything for him, but I wish it would.