There are some dates that, no matter how many years have passed, will always open up old scars. June 12th is one of those days. I remember waking up in Cusco, Peru, my friend and travel mate, Kevin, and I having completed our four day hike to Machu Picchu, nearly a year in planning, the day prior. I woke up before Kevin, and quietly went about my business in our ridiculously cheap private hostel room. It was still too early for breakfast, so I pulled out my phone, thinking I’d send a good morning text to friends back in the states.
I quickly saw the major headlines. There had been a shooting in Orlando. Someone had open fired in a gay club. I refreshed the screens and tweets for information as fast as I possibly could, the death count seeming to go up each time. Gut-wrenching images flashed across my screen as I lay still in my bed, breaking a little more with each passing moment. I pulled the covers over my head, eyes still glued to the dimly illuminated screen, so I could cry a little in self-contained solitude.
Kevin eventually woke up, and when he did I’m sure I told him the news, but I was too busy putting on a brave face to remember how he reacted. If he noticed how shaken I was, he had the courtesy to pretend otherwise.
That evening we headed back to Colorado by way of Miami. When we landed, I remember the still breaking news plastering every television screen at the airport. Predictably, the news was not stories about the heroism of those who died at Pulse, but rather a dissection of the political reactions of Trump and Hillary that apparently captivated the nation. She was a little too calculated, and he was a little too brazen, but they were frankly both quick to pump their political agendas into a tragedy that felt so personal. The discussion quickly turned into one about the importance of gun safety, or the need to name it all “Radical Islamic Terrorism” but what I needed was something to help stop the bleeding.
I’m not saying those issues aren’t important. I’m saying that a broken soul gets little benefit from an easily digestible sound bite. The sad reality of modern day America is that it won’t be long until we see another tragedy like this one. My most sincere hope is that we’ve gained a touch of empathy when that inevitability becomes reality, but more than that, I hope that we realize how fragile these lives we have are. It takes a moment, a decision without any expected consequence, to change our eternities.
The best way I can think to honor those who needlessly lost their lives is to reflect the light that they deserved, to be quick to listen and say I love you, and slow to critique. I wish I could be a more perfect example of those things, but today, and every June 12th in the future at least, I’ll try to remember that, rather than the scar.