THE LONG, HARD ROAD

It has now been nearly two weeks since the terrible murders in Las Vegas and for many of the victims who survived and all the families involved, the horror continues. The closing of the deep wounds that were opened that day has not begun and will not begin for months and even years.

Some well-meaning, but unintentionally unkind individuals talk about the healing process. But there is no real healing from these shootings. There is a long, painful scaring process in which people learn to live with the reality that their child, spouse, friend, or acquaintance was murdered. It will be a long time before the scabs cover the wounds and eventually the wounds scar over. 

One of the most infuriating and feeble attempts to comfort is to say, “We know where he or she is.” No you don’t. You know nothing of the kind. All these statements do is enable the person or persons saying them to go home and sleep and feel warm and cozy. It is, in fact, one of the cruelest things anyone can say to a parent whose child has been murdered or to man or woman whose spouse has been gunned down.

Families and survivors of this gun violence do not need to be preached to—they need to be listened to.

There are parents, spouses, and friends of those killed in Las Vegas who may need a lifetime of psychological counseling. That is the case in other mass shootings.

If you really want to help, then you can begin by listening to the people who grieve. They need to talk about the person lost or permanently maimed; they need to get their minds back to the point where they can think; they need to try in some way to make sense of the new, terrible reality in which they live. 

And if you REALLY want to help, you will not only listen but speak out against the absurdity of selling automatic weapons to anyone without question; you need to push for laws to curb the power of the NRA and gun manufacturers.