Again and again and again. Again?

So as I sit here looking at the headlines scattered across the kitchen table, I once again find myself at a loss for words to describe the horror of still another catastrophic school shooting. As I wrote nearly six years ago, following the Newtown tragedy, I still don't know how to reconcile the thought of a kid going into school, carrying his or her lunchbox and a backpack, full of plans for the day or the week  with having that same child wheeled out in a body bag.

I grew up during the era of the Vietnam war on television and, sadly, as I got older I began to understand that the stories you saw in the evening news, stories of attacks and initiatives and any other word for war, meant that somewhere somebody was going to die and come home in a casket with a flag. But it was a war, and both sides had guns and not that that makes anything right or better, it was a war and in war shooting happens and death happens and maybe someday it won't. And curiously enough, in a time of war, there are always ongoing negotiations to stop the war, stop the shooting and stop the dying.

But in this case, these are kids, going to school. And teachers, going to school which also happens to be work. And these are parents, saying goodbye to their kids for what they assume is 7 hours. Not forever.

But in this case, these kids, these teachers, these parents - they're not carrying guns or other devices of self defense. Because, for God's sake, they're GOING TO SCHOOL! They're not walking through the rice paddies of Viet Nam.

But here they are, just like those young men all those years ago, dying at the hands of someone wielding a weapon that just happens to be a million times more lethal than the lunchboxes and backpacks the students have.

And while this goes on, again and again and again (how many times this year alone?!?), where are the peace talks? Where are the negotiations to end the carnage? Where are the "concerned politicians" who so want to do something? Why in the hell are they doing NOTHING??

It's time for all of us to come the startling realization that our representatives in Washington should be just that - our REPRESENTATIVES! And if they're not representing you - regardless of party or political ideology - then they need to go. They need to be voted out. Because if the vast majority of Americans want something done, and nothing is done, are the people actually being represented??

I pray that I won't have to write the words "school shooting" again. But given our propensity to care more about "keeping up with the Kardashians" rather than pressuring our representatives to do the right thing, I sadly don't think it will be the last time.

For You

Einstein says time is relative,
never ending,
relentless.

But with you, time is frozen,
immobile,
eternal

And yet never enough.

Time passes like water
down a river,
on a journey to someplace.

Someplace, anyplace
but really no place
because that place
is empty

without you.