Orel Family

"We are going to be the last mass school shooting." So said students in Parkland, Florida, a couple weeks ago. Of course, nobody -- likely not even the students who said that -- believed it to be literal truth. All it would take is for one person, somewhere, to go off. Yesterday morning, we had the 4th shooting on a college campus  since Parkland. The first 3 didn't include any deaths, but 2 people died yesterday. According to news reports, a student killed his own parents, who were on campus to pick him up and take him home for spring break. In the current news cycle, an event like this seems sadly unremarkable. It can be dismissed as a "domestic dispute."   No students were killed in the making of this story. Move along. But this one was at Central Michigan University , where Aaron is studying. Yesterday morning, he was preparing to come home for spring break. He had an 11am class, after which he was going over to the music building to practice. He was ...

Has it really been more than 5 years since Newtown ? Little Noah Pozner, maybe he'd be... still in Sandy Hook Elementary School, along with his classmates. Maybe he'd be starting to dream about his bar mitzvah. A crazy 20-year old former student with 4 semi-automatic weapons came in to the school one December day, and in less than 5 minutes unloaded more than 150 shots to ensure that dreams would not come true. Noah was shot 11 times, the shots literally blowing off his jaw and a hand. The governor cried. The president cried. He begged for congressional action to create laws that might at least reduce the risk. At a vigil shortly after the massacre, he said, "Are we really prepared to say that we're powerless in the face of such carnage, that the politics are too hard? Are we prepared to say that such violence visited on our children year after year after year is somehow the price of our freedom?" So here we are. Five years later. I start typing in the s...

One week ago tonight, I was on the back end of a business trip to Texas. My computer buzzed; Lori was calling me on google. I put the call on video. Elianna got on, then Aaron. Elianna put devil's horns on her head, then a mustache on Aaron's face. It was funny and silly and care-free. But I also missed my kids, and was counting down until I could be home again. Early Friday afternoon, a holiday lunch was ending. The mood in the room was cheerful, volunteers were wrapping gifts for children served by a local charity. I checked facebook on my phone. A message said, "unable to move," and then, "god bless the 26, 18 of which were children. There are no words for this." I looked across the table, and asked to those who were still there, "Was there a shooting somewhere today?" Inevitably, the sad answer was yes. It is my worst nightmare. I expect it is the worst nightmare of many, many parents. We drop our kids off at school, we wish them a great te...