Member-only story
An Incomplete Sentence
Shell-shocked with nothing else to offer
I have not directly experienced war in this life but I know what being shell-shocked is like thanks to an experience I had when I was a child when lightning struck just a few feet away from me. I’m guessing it is similar to a bomb going off in one’s midst. I was thrown to the ground and I temporarily went deaf. Eventually, I looked up and I could see my family screaming but I could not hear a thing. Everything seemed to go into silent slow-motion. The simultaneous explosion of thunder was unimaginably loud and it was followed by frightening silence and numbness.
That is kind of how I’ve been feeling since the horrific events of this past weekend. I can’t think, I can’t feel and everything has gone silent and still. I am shell-shocked.
But mass shootings like this happen all the time now. I don’t go into this kind of reaction after each and every one of them. If I did I’d be non-functional and practically comatose on a daily basis. Why did this event elicit such a powerful reaction?
I don’t know. Like I said, I can’t think. I am still too shell-shocked to put things into perspective. The last time I was this shell-shocked was after 9–11. But this event was nothing like 9–11. Why would I react in the same way?
