Not just another school shooting: What we lost in Florida (Column)
Andrew Sharp“X went on a shooting rampage at X high school Xday, leaving X dead while panicked students barricaded themselves inside classrooms and frantic parents raced to the scene.”
With names and numbers removed, that’s the lede from a story about Wednesday’s school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in which 17 people died. But you could fill in those blanks with dates and names from around the country. And the reporters may as well save that wording for the future, because similar sentences will likely be needed many times if trends continue without change.
“You hear about this all the time, but you never expect it to happen right here in your neighborhood,” one student said.
Think about the first part of the quote for a moment. Let it sink in that this kind of carnage is commonplace and schoolchildren are used to hearing about it.
It’s the sixth school shooting this year that has left students dead or wounded, USA Today reported. Remember how shocked we were in 1999 when two students killed 13 people at Columbine High School? We’ve gotten less and less surprised in the years since.
Background:'I'm sick to my stomach': 17 dead in Florida high school shooting; former student in custody
We’re becoming numb. It’s too much grief, too much tragedy, and it’s easier to push it away and move on to the next political debate or celebrity story.
It’s worth stopping to remind ourselves what we lose each time this happens.
On Wednesday, we lost thousands of years of human life, based on average life expectancy.
That’s several thousand birthday parties.
It’s 17 sets of plans for the future. Some of those who died were adults. Others were students. Were they going to be teachers, inventors, carpenters, engineers, mothers or fathers? We’ll never know.
Gone are thousands of trips to the beach, picnics, fishing trips, basketball games.
Some will never learn to drive. Others will never have a first day of college.
Some will never make those memories of meeting that special someone.
Seventeen people will not gather with friends someday to reminisce about the good old days.
They’ve lost hundreds of thousands of sunrises and sunsets. They’ve lost the uncountable moments that, amid life’s drudgery and routine, make us catch our breath in awe — holding a warm pet curled up on a lap, seeing a forest reflected in a mountain lake, looking up at the Eiffel Tower, grasping that perfect line in a poem, holding a newborn.
Gone are the discoveries of passions they never knew they had.
Their loved ones have lost hundreds of chances to say goodbye, a gift that even the worst cancer grants.
Their family members have lost thousands of conversations about the joys and pains of life. They’ll miss the jokes and stories and even the fights.
Faces will be missing from hundreds of Christmases, thousands of family dinners.
All this has been taken not by the inevitable tragedies of life — the car crashes, the disease, the natural disasters. It’s been stolen by one person’s evil choice.
This is what we’ve lost. It’s not “just another” school shooting.
What are we going to do about it?
Email Andrew Sharp at asharp@delmarvanow.com. Find him on Twitter @buckeye_201 and on Facebook @andrewsharp201.
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