The New Boogie-Man

I dislike being afraid.  I can take it even further than that, I pretty much hate it.  It’s not the same as the tension of being on the edge of your seat.  It’s deeper and more primal and longer lasting.  And once it has its claws hooked?  It will not only rob you of sleep but of complete bodily health and mental peace.  The last time fear left its mark on me was after my twins were born.  (Literally.) They spent 55 days in the NICU and it is the most afraid I have been my entire my life.  I was so afraid that it started my hair graying. 

Before they were born I had had maybe one or two gray hairs in my life (I was 32).  After they were released from the hospital I had an entire section of hair that had gone silver.

I am fortunate that I’ve had very few moments of terror in my life.  Even typing that sentence, only a few come to mind. 

One of them was when a man was following my son and me from a store.  I kept us in a public place and he passed us, angry that he wasn’t getting a victim, with a knife by his side.    

Another was when I watched my mom drive away after my first son was born.  I was now alone with a baby that I loved more than my own life and could be taken from me in so many ways. 

And then there was when my husband and I were in New Orleans and, again, we were being stalked for a mugging.  Public places, no running, and no dark corners.  Victim-hood averted. 

One of the most surreal was when I was standing in the hallway of a High School, as students flooded it, headed toward my classroom.

The day before that, a student brought a knife and killed one of his teachers.  Yes, on campus.  Yes, during the school day.  And yes, with other students and adults in the room.  He didn’t turn it on anybody else.  Or maybe he just didn’t get the chance to turn it on anybody else because another teacher took him down.

I didn’t know the teacher he killed.

I didn’t even know him. 

I didn’t feel a lot of fear the day it happened because I was locked down where I was.  And after that, I had a job to do.  Helping dismiss the classrooms and offices, and then trying to communicate with my husband to let him know that I was okay.  But mostly just holding it together till I could get home. 

I cried when I did.  I had never been that close to that level of violence.

But the real fear was the next day when we had school.  (Yes, we had classes. We didn’t miss a day.  Don’t get me started.)  I had never felt knee-knocking fear.  Jelly-leg fear.   I could see it on the faces of some of my students too.  Life was violent, school was supposed to be safe. 

There have been other moments I’ve been afraid but it wasn’t the kind of fear that sticks to your insides and makes you want to cry or scream or run or fight.  I’m very, very lucky that I don’t live in a place where that is part of my everyday world.  That horror movie location where someone just decides to kill someone else.  Be it a stranger or someone they see every day.  They plot and they plan and they unleash a little more fear into the world.  That day increased my awareness of it, you can be sure.  Just as all the other days like it have been steadily ratcheting up the ‘pay attention’ factor in all our lives.  But even with all of that, I’ve never been afraid of that monster actually becoming a part of my world.    

Well, until this year’s start of school. 

For the first time, all of my children were, are, going to be in school, the same school.  All three were going to be in one building and I was going to one drop off and one pick up.  They were stoked.  I was…well, experiencing all of the emotions you go through when the “stay at home with kids” chapter of your life is coming to an end. 

But there was another emotion too.  One that my parents didn’t have from the get go.  One that my grandparents would never dream could exist as they dropped their kids off at school. 

FEAR. True FEAR bordering on terror. 

This fear doesn’t get talked about at school orientation because parents don’t even want to acknowledge its existence.  It’s the new grown up boogie-man.  That monster hiding in the closet, that kills because it likes it.  That enjoys inflicting terror and trauma.  But instincts from childhood are still how we deal with it.  If we act like we can’t see it, then it can never get us.  Then again, that’s not what we fear.  We’re not afraid of it getting us.  We’re afraid of it getting them. 

I was in High School when Columbine happened.  I’m the generation that grew up with school shootings and then mass public shootings being a ‘thing’.  Whenever I go somewhere with my children I find myself checking our exit route or where we could hide.  But school is different.  Because every parent and grandparent understands that for some reason you believe that your children will always be safer when they are with you.  So leaving them at someone else’s mercy is…well, terrifying. 

When I dropped my children off on the first day, I prayed that evil would be kept far away from that school.  That all doors would remain locked tight if they needed to be locked tight.  I even said in my prayers that I couldn’t believe I was praying that a violent man, or woman, would never be able to get inside that building to do harm.  And then I begged the Lord to put my children with teachers that would hide them in cabinets and closets or would take someone with a knife down or even stand in front of bullet for them.  I still ask these things.  Every day.

We say a prayer as a family in the car as we do drop off in the morning and I always end it with “and keep everyone safe today”.  My boys just think that’s part of how you pray.  They don’t know just how much is packed into those five words.  

Many of you reading this may be thinking “that’s over thinking” or even “that’s ridiculous”.  And you are correct.  It is ridiculous.  But it’s also reality.  It’s real in this life.

All those years ago, before school started the morning after the murder, the faculty had a meeting with the Superintendent of the district.  It did not go well.  Mostly because the administration told us that nothing was going to change.  No new security was going to be in place, no metal detectors, nothing.  (They didn’t even allow the students’ memorial to the teacher to stay up.)  When that was questioned, the Superintendent said that studies showed that metal detectors only catch about 30% of weapons trying to be brought into school. 

I had had enough at that point and said, “So?  That’s 30% less that we don’t have to worry about.  What are you doing to keep us safe?  One of us has been KILLED.  You CANNOT ask us to continue in the status quo.”

That didn’t make me any friends, at least with the administration. 

But it’s still the same question being asked.  By myself, by the loved ones of victims, by police officers, by the victims themselves.  The ones who survive that is.

This isn’t a post about what to do about guns.  Yes, I have opinions but it’s not to hate on guns.  So many of the people I hold closest in my heart own guns, several guns, and nothing about that fact changes any of the ways I feel about them.      

My husband has hunted and talks about the guns he’s going to inherit that belonged to his great-grandpa.  When that happens, I know that he’ll want to practice with them and teach our sons to fire them too.  As well as how to be smart and safe with them.  This isn’t about guns.   

What this is about is fear. 

Please, please, please don’t respond with anger when someone is desperately seeking a way to make their world, our world, 30% safer.  Please don’t answer with derision and aggression when someone says that America needs gun reform.  Please don’t paint them into a box when someone says that enough is enough.  Don’t come back at them with memes or defensiveness or threat of more violence.  See their fear.  See their desperate desire to protect those they love.  See them. 

Because that person could be a parent who just dropped their kids off at school.  And who’s praying that they will be safe in that building, asking they will be kept whole till we can get them home, begging God that this new boogie-man won’t find them.