In many conversations about gun violence, the scope of pain is misunderstood to only include that which it most affects.
I grew up in Oxford, Michigan. After moving away, my childhood became wrapped in a picturesque bow. When you leave a chapter behind, you think its comforting memories are untouchable.
Five years later, four students at Oxford High School lost their lives simply by showing up to school. I found this out while three-hundred miles away in my own safe classroom. That night, I said goodbye to Hana and Tate through old yearbooks on my bedroom floor.
Because we have accepted gun violence as a norm, the world kept spinning. I saw myself out of class to cry in the bathroom. What was another sorry tale for people to scroll past was real loss in my life – an invisible loss that I continuously carry. And this is only a fraction of the trauma that my hometown confronts every day.
Each time a life is lost to gun violence, we all feel a fraction of that loss, no matter how small. This empathy and collective pain can be a transformative tool to fight our collective desensitization.