Incidents like this affect everyone in the community.

My best wishes to you and your family.

I feel so bad for your family. The recent stabbings at Franklin Regional in Murrysville, PA hit "too close to home" for us.

I no longer think "it can't happen here". It can happen anywhere and before long everyone will know someone who has been affected by this horror.

for our family, with my niece attending UCSB in the fall.
it seems as if it must come to a tipping point where enough people have been personally touched that the impetus to get something done will override the inertia and greed of congress. i think that's how we finally got out of vietnam - after over 50,000 americans were killed over there.

I hope the graduation ceremonies will be rescheduled at a time that is more appropriate so that your daughter will get to wear her new dress and the vintage black Angora sweater.

Yes, please give them extra hugs...and one or two, please, from an old Texas mother whose daughter was about to graduate from high school around the time the Columbine incident occurred and which mother remembers sitting in her office the next day scared to death for her daughter to be at school. Nothing happened to us, but I remember my own fear and I can only imagine that fear being amplified by actually being in the same location.

I wish you peace and comfort.

I hope the graduation is rescheduled so your daughter can wear her dress.

It sounds like the terrible tragedy is that the OP"s daughter does not get to wear her dress to graduation.

But there are parents today, mourning the loss of their child.

I just can't buy into the tragedy of a graduation being disrupted. It could be disrupted by anything...a tornado, a landslide, a flood...but when it is disrupted by a school shooting, I think the dead take precedence over the inconvenienced.

I mourn with the parents who just lost a child...not with the parents who just got a delayed graduation.

But that's not how I meant it. I frankly had a lot of emotions about today. But my daughters transfer to this school was foremost on my mind.

But then I thought about it from my daughters perspective. her new dress was so very special to her & I knew she would not have asked for it were it not very important.

I am a DU member from 2004 with a very low post count. This is how the latest tragedy-manifested by Republican policies-has affected me.

I understand your point & hope you get my perspective.

I can almost imagine your daughter 20 yrs from now...talking about how her graduation was delayed because some right wing b.s. that she is too young to understand (fully) happened at her school.

I'm so sorry it was so close to home and that your daughter is directly affected by it. I'm glad she's safe.

Hugs.

And I'm sorry for your daughter (and for you). Two years ago one of our local high school kids was killed in a skateboard accident on the day of his graduation. I didn't even know him (although my nephew did), but I still can't get over it. I'm still traumatized every time I drive down the road where it happened. I'm sure most of the minor things like a kid's wardrobe malfunction/disruption, have probably been forgotten or minimized by now. When all these kids look back at their graduation, they will not be remembering wardrobe issues, they will be remembering the loss of their fellow student, Forrest.

Death is a lesson we cannot forget. I have a wardrobe issue from my childhood that still bothers me today if I think about it, but in the bigger picture, it was a very small and inconsequential matter.

I live less than 2 miles from the scene of the Friday courthouse shootout in Cumming, GA.

I can't help but feel like a sitting duck right now, terrified that simple things like running around town (drove past the courthouse twice today, wondering if a shootout would break out), paying my bills will mean certain death.

These asshats have invaded our homes, our personal space with unspeakable violence. And, like you, I'm hiding my feelings from my daughter who is also terrified and wondering if the store she works at is just "too close" to Walmart to be safe.

I can only offer this sentiment - recognize the feelings, the anger, and deal with them privately because they're very real.

your emotions are being discounted by all these "I'll say it" posts which are just as much angry litter as the facebook posts of these idiots shooting up our neighborhoods.

Please know, your pain is being felt and understood despite the stupidity of some DUers.

It's scary to have terrorism so close to you. I hope that your daughter can have the recognition she deserves for her accomplishments.

If every other country in the world isn't issuing travel warnings to stay out of the USA I don't know why.

I live neat you in PDX, BTW. It used to be safe here. Now we have mall and school shootings.

And I even got to hug my oldest. My younger one doesn't take well to hugging to be honest.

Sadly the 8th grade recognition ceremony was just officially canceled w/o any future date. I was hoping they would get a re-do.
But my oldest is still very optimistic about going to Reynolds. The teachers & facility did what they had to with near perfection. And luckily but sadly they had just had drills of the exact scenario about a month ago.

I'll try & make up for it. And I'll do a family set of pics documenting her fabulousness.. But it is sad that her night was spoiled by the events.

She impressed me with her positive attitude I'll say that.

My condolences to those lost. So very sad...

Thank you for the replies..

You are not suggesting in any way that your "tragedy" outweighs the larger one.
But you are giving voice to the fact that such things have ripple effects almost no one ever thinks about. And those ripple effects matter. Not in the same way the deaths or injuries do, but they still matter.

I do hope they hold the graduation soon. The kids should not be deprived of that. If it doesn't happen, do have a family event, your daughter wears the dress and sweater, and you take many, many photographs.

lives a block away from the sorority house where the two female students were senselessly gunned down. I am grateful that my child chose that night to go to the movies. She was a couple of miles away when the awful events happened. However, each day on her way to campus she passes a large memorial of flowers and, although she doesn't verbalize it, I know the tragedy has taken its toll.

Thanks to the Republicans, the NRA, our spineless, soulless politicians owned by the gun lobby who refuse to enact any meaningful gun control legislation, these tragedies have become routine and none of us are safe. I am sorry this is affecting your family in such a personal way, and I share your disgust.

The republicans, tea-partiests, bigots won't even consider thinking about this problem.

It is a psychological trait that seems to be concentrated with right-wingers, conservatives - a mentality that is strongly biased towards "my tribe", "my beliefs".

Then again, after one or more of their children are affected by the violence that they espouse, they'll look quickly for something external (god?, devil) to blame it on.

has less and less meaning these days. As others before me have pointed out it's starting to look like every home, every family, every person in this country will have to be personally affected by these senseless shootings before congress does jackshit about it. Senseless doesn't even begin to describe it.
I don't suppose there's any way you and the other parents could get together, rent a hall, and hold your own ceremony? Something to try and re-establish some semblance of normality (ignoring the fact that mass shootings have become all-too-normal).

and in a way they will always remember. The fifties were a tame time with speeding was the most lethal form of injury and death(outside of disease). In the sixties schools were safe and only the hell of Viet Nam stole the lives of many and the horror continued for those at home. But now where is anyone safe? Children should be able to go to school without fear. They should not have to wear bullet proof blankets when some loon barges in with a gun in his hand and hate on the lips. Days such as graduation should not be marred by acts of violence. Our children are losing their innocence is ways todays parents and grandparents never dreamed of. It is our nightmare and we must find a way to stop it.