Musings of a Punk Rock Father

Yesterday around 3:30, I heard on the radio that police activity was reported at Northern Illinois University. NIU's website reported a possible gunman. At 3:55, I saw the update online that a shooting was confirmed. As an NIU graduate, the confirmation floored me even moreso than the other school shootings. I called my wife to see if anyone we know goes there, and then e-mailed one of my old professors. He responded soon after, letting me know he and his wife, also a professor, were safely at home. He was teaching in the next building when it happened.

The count is up to 6 dead, including the man who attacked the university. Everyday something in the news makes me ask "What is wrong with us?"

This tragedy hits close to home because I am a graduate of the university, and because we live only 20 or so miles from the main campus. I walked past that building nearly every day for 4 years. Seeing the doors and windows shot out, footage of students and police, hearing the accounts on the radio, the reality that I personally know some people who lived through this...it is too much for me to comprehend and to find any words to articulate how it is affecting me.

After Columbine, I would just start crying thinking about those kids...KIDS!...who had to dive over tables, around doorways, to avoid a bullet. When I saw Michael Moore's "Bowling for Columbine," I couldn't sleep, and I kept replaying in my head the video from inside the school on that horrific day. I had never seen it until that film, and I found it profoundly disturbing.

I feel the same way now. I think about the young people in that classroom, and I cannot believe that they had to make the choice to jump, dive, crawl, whatever it took to get away from someone who wanted to destroy lives. I cannot believe that 6 of them are dead.