Uvalde

Herself speaks.

Nineteen small souls, and the two adults responsible for their education, gone in the course of one very terrible afternoon in the tiny town of Uvalde. It's unbearable. And yet shockingly common here in the United States. 

The more information that comes out, the worse it is -- the "good guys with guns" who didn't help, the whispered 911 calls made by captive children in the room with the shooter, the frantic parents trying to enter the school to save their own children. Panic and desperation and fear. Mistakes by authorities. The governor stating, nonsensically, that "it could have been worse".  

It could have been worse. Imagine being the parent of one of the dead children hearing those words. How?! How could it possibly be worse!? 

And then, the husband of one of the teachers dropping dead of a heart attack two days later, leaving their four children orphaned. Because things weren't terrible enough yet somehow.  

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Odds are good that none of us even heard of Uvalde before that day. And now, it has become a name that we won't forget, like Sandy Hook or Columbine.  

We think about our children, and despair just a bit about this world that we live in.  No way to keep them safe, it seems. All we can do is hope.