Miss Lil’s Morning Coffee:

Miss Lil’s Morning Coffee: Thirty-Six. Fucking. Thirty-Six.

Pull up a chair, grab a coffee, and take a seat. We need to talk.

As Miss Lil sits here this morning with her coffee, yes, readers, coffee, perfectly swirled with pumpkin spice creamer, there are donuts on the table, bagels waiting to be toasted, and a whole lot of things weighing on my heart that no amount of caffeine is going to fix.

Usually, this is the part where I would crack a joke, make some smart-ass comment about the state of the world, and invite you all to sit a spell while we discuss whatever fresh nonsense humanity has cooked up overnight.

But today?

Today, I am tired.

Not the kind of tired that comes from staying up too late or having one too many things on your to-do list. I mean the kind of tired that settles deep in your bones. The kind that makes you stare into your coffee cup and wonder what the hell we are doing to one another. The kind that leaves you so damn frustrated that you want to scream, but instead, you just sit there quietly because you honestly don't know what else to do.

Because, dear readers, we are facing our 36th K-12 school shooting of 2026.

Thirty-six.

Let that number sit with you for a minute. Don't scroll past it. Don't shake your head, mutter something about how awful it is, and move on to the next thing on your newsfeed.

Thirty-six school shootings in a year that isn't even over yet.

Thirty-six times that families have had another reason to fear the phone ringing during the school day. Thirty-six times that parents have had to wonder whether their babies were safe behind classroom doors. Thirty-six times that teachers, the people we entrust with our children's education and well-being, have had to face the possibility that the ordinary work of teaching might suddenly become a fight for survival.

And somewhere in all those numbers are children who will never come home, families whose lives have been split into a before and an after, and classmates who may spend the rest of their lives remembering sounds, sights, and moments that no child should ever have to experience.

Thirty-six.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. How many times are we supposed to sit here and say we are heartbroken before somebody finally decides that enough is enough?

How many mornings do we have to wake up to another headline before this stops being treated as just another terrible thing that happened?

And how many more cups of coffee am I going to sit through while trying to understand how we have gotten here?

Because I don't understand it. I really don't.

And I am frightened by how normal this is starting to feel.

Let's Talk About the Children, Not the Circus

One of the things that has stayed with me about this tragedy is the decision by the victims' parents not to release their children's names publicly.

And I want to say something about that.

Good. Protect your babies. Protect their privacy. Protect what little peace you can still give them.

That is Miss Lil's opinion, and I will stand by it.

A child does not have to become a household name to be mourned. A grieving family does not owe the public a photograph, a biography, a collection of childhood memories, or permission for strangers to dissect every detail of their child's life.

These children were people before they became victims. They had families, favorite foods, little habits that probably drove their parents crazy, inside jokes, dreams, and futures they should have had the chance to discover.

They were more than a headline before this happened, and they remain more than a headline now.

I understand that the media has a job to do. I understand that the public wants answers. I understand that people want to know who was lost and what happened.

But there is a difference between reporting the news and turning somebody else's worst day into a public spectacle.

There is a difference between remembering a child and feeding the machinery that can make a tragedy feel like entertainment.

Let these parents grieve without feeling pressured to perform that grief for the rest of us. Let them hold their babies close in whatever way remains possible. Let them remember the sound of their children's laughter without having to watch their photographs circulate endlessly across social media.

You can honor a child without knowing their name. You can mourn a family’s loss without demanding access to their pain.

And if these parents have chosen privacy, I hope the rest of us have enough decency to respect it.

They have already lost something no parent should ever have to lose. The least we can do is not make them fight for the right to grieve in peace.

A Classroom That Should Have Been Safe

Now, there is another part of this story that makes my heart ache in a different way.

Reports indicate that the classroom targeted in this tragedy was a special-needs classroom. And the reported circumstances surrounding the 16-year-old shooter have made this even harder to process, particularly the information that he had once been a student in special education himself.

I want to be careful here, because there are questions that still need answers. We do not yet have a confirmed motive, and I am not going to sit at this coffee table and pretend I know what was going through this teenager's mind.

I don't.

But I keep thinking about the children in that classroom.

Children who deserved to spend their school day learning, growing, laughing, and being cared for. Children who deserved adults looking out for them. Children who should never have had to become part of a conversation about school shootings.

And I keep thinking about the teachers.

Teachers who walk into classrooms every morning with lesson plans, supplies, and a hundred little things on their minds. Teachers who remember which child needs extra encouragement, which one needs a little more patience, and which one lights up when they finally understand something they have been struggling to learn.

They go to work to teach children.

They should not have to prepare themselves to protect those children from bullets.

And yet, once again, we are talking about a teacher who stepped into danger, along with a bystander whose reported bravery helped bring the attack to an end.

I am grateful for that courage. Truly, deeply grateful.

But I am also angry that we keep finding ourselves in a position where we have to praise people for risking their lives in situations that should never have happened in the first place.

We call them heroes, and they deserve every bit of that recognition.

But somewhere along the way, we need to ask ourselves why we keep needing heroes in our schools.

Why are we asking teachers to be educators, counselors, protectors, emergency responders, and, in the worst moments imaginable, the people who stand between a shooter and a room full of children?

When did that become an acceptable part of the job?

And why are we so accustomed to these stories that we can read them over breakfast?

I am sorry, but I cannot swallow that with my coffee.

And Then There Is the Gun

Now we come to a detail that has me sitting here with my jaw clenched and my coffee getting cold.

According to reports, the shooter's mother purchased the gun.

I want to be clear about something before anybody starts throwing accusations around. The circumstances surrounding that purchase, what the mother knew, how the firearm was stored, and what access the teenager had are matters that need to be established through reliable reporting and the investigation. We should not confuse a reported fact with answers we do not yet have.

But the fact that this question is even part of the conversation is enough to make me stop and think.

A sixteen-year-old is still a child in so many ways. Old enough to make decisions that can have devastating consequences, yes, but still a teenager. Still somebody whose life should have been moving toward adulthood, not toward a moment like this.

And when a firearm purchased by a parent enters the story of a school shooting, I have questions.

Hard questions.

What precautions were taken? Was the gun secured? Was there anything that should have raised concern? Were warning signs missed? What did the adults around this teenager know, and what could reasonably have been done differently?

Those questions matter. They matter because if we are serious about preventing the next tragedy, we cannot simply stop at the name of the person who pulled the trigger.

We have to examine access to the weapon. We have to examine the circumstances that allowed a teenager to get his hands on it. We have to look honestly at the responsibilities that come with firearm ownership, especially when children live in the home.

Owning a gun comes with responsibilities. That should not be a controversial statement.

If you choose to own a firearm, securing it and preventing unauthorized access are part of the responsibility. That responsibility does not disappear because the weapon is in your home or because you trust the people around you.

And no, I am not claiming that one detail explains an entire tragedy. We do not know enough to say that.

I am saying that we have to be willing to ask these questions instead of treating them as uncomfortable inconveniences.

Because the children in that classroom did not get to choose the risks they were exposed to.

They were simply at school.

And that should have been enough to keep them safe.

The Timeline Nobody Should Have to Live Through

There is something particularly cruel about the timeline of a school shooting.

It begins as an ordinary day.

Parents get children dressed. Someone probably argues about breakfast. A backpack gets forgotten. Somebody is running late. A teacher prepares for class. A student complains about an assignment. A parent kisses a child goodbye, perhaps distracted by the dozen other things waiting to be done.

Life is happening.

Then something changes.

An attack begins. People run, hide, call for help, and try to make decisions in seconds that might determine whether they live or die. Teachers and bystanders are forced to act in circumstances nobody should have to face. First responders rush toward danger while families on the outside begin trying to find information.

And then comes the waiting.

That awful, stomach-turning waiting.

Parents checking their phones. Families calling schools. Loved ones trying to find out whether the person they love is safe. People refreshing news pages and watching for updates because they cannot do anything else.

Every passing minute stretches.

And eventually, for some families, the news arrives that changes everything.

I cannot imagine what it must be like to send your child to school believing you will see them that afternoon, only to find yourself facing a reality in which that ordinary expectation has been taken away.

I cannot imagine the silence that follows.

The untouched bedroom. The backpack left behind. The clothes waiting to be washed. The little everyday things that suddenly become unbearable because the person who made them ordinary is gone.

And I cannot imagine how a parent begins to make sense of any of it.

There is no neat timeline for grief. There is no deadline for healing. There is no magic sentence that makes the loss of a child easier to carry.

There is only a family that has been forced into a life they never wanted, trying to figure out how to take the next breath.

And while those families are beginning that impossible journey, the rest of the country is already asking questions, arguing about politics, debating causes, and moving toward the next headline.

That is one of the things that frightens me most.

How quickly the world keeps moving when somebody else's world has stopped.

Thirty-Six Is Not Just a Number

Here is where I need everybody to put down their phones for a minute and really think about what we are saying when we talk about the thirty-sixth school shooting.

We are not talking about thirty-six isolated headlines floating around in cyberspace.

We are talking about real communities.

Real schools.

Real children.

Real parents who may never again hear the words, "Have a good day at school," without remembering the last time they said them.

We are talking about educators who may be struggling to return to their classrooms, children who may be afraid to walk through their school doors, and families who now have to explain things to their kids that children should never have to understand.

And we are talking about the people who survive these attacks but carry the experience with them long after the news cameras leave.

Not every wound is visible.

Some children will remember the fear. Some will struggle with the sound of an unexpected noise. Some will have trouble concentrating in class. Some may find themselves worrying about their friends every time they walk into a school building.

Some parents will start checking their phones more often. Some teachers will look at their classroom doors differently. Some families will never quite return to the sense of safety they had before.

And for the families who lost children, there is no returning to what life was.

So when I say thirty-six, I am not just talking about a statistic.

I am talking about the lives wrapped up inside that number.

And I am asking why we keep allowing the number to grow.

We have had investigations. We have had public statements. We have had vigils, speeches, arguments, promises, and endless debates about what needs to change.

We have watched families plead for action.

We have watched communities mourn.

We have watched people who barely knew the victims show up with flowers, candles, and handwritten notes because they needed some way to express a grief they could not otherwise explain.

And then, too often, we watch the attention fade.

Until it happens again.

Another school. Another family. Another teacher. Another child.

Another morning when somebody's coffee gets cold while they stare at the news and wonder how much more of this we can possibly take.

I am exhausted by it.

I am exhausted by the arguments that seem to begin before the victims have even been identified. I am exhausted by the way tragedy becomes ammunition for people who would rather win a political argument than listen to a grieving family. I am exhausted by the expectation that we should somehow become accustomed to this.

And I am especially exhausted by the idea that being heartbroken is all we can do.

It isn't.

Grief matters. Compassion matters. Remembering the victims matters.

But so does asking hard questions. So does demanding accountability where the facts support it. So does examining firearm access, school safety, warning signs, and the ways families and communities can intervene before violence happens.

We do not have to agree on every proposed solution to agree that children deserve to go to school without becoming targets.

That should not be a radical position.

That should be the bare minimum.

What Happens When the Coffee Is Gone?

I keep coming back to the fact that this shooter was sixteen.

Sixteen years old.

At sixteen, a young person should be worrying about schoolwork, friendships, awkward conversations, growing up, and figuring out who they want to become.

At sixteen, there should still be time for a person to learn, change, ask for help, and make different choices.

But a sixteen-year-old has also reached an age where choices can carry consequences that cannot be undone.

There is no confirmed motive at this point, and I will not invent one to make this story easier to understand. I do not know what led this teenager to commit this act, and I will not pretend that knowing his age or his educational history tells us the answer.

What I do know is that there are children and families who have been hurt, and that the investigation must establish what happened and why.

I hope the truth comes out.

Not a convenient truth. Not a version shaped to protect somebody's reputation or satisfy somebody's political beliefs.

The truth.

Because if there were warning signs, we need to understand them. If there were failures in firearm security, we need to understand those. If there were opportunities to intervene that were missed, we need to examine them honestly.

Not because understanding what happened will bring back the children who were lost.

It won't.

But because the next classroom deserves more than our promises that we will do better.

And the next parent who sends a child through a school door deserves more than another round of condolences after the unthinkable happens.

I want to live in a world where a school shooting is so shocking that we struggle to comprehend how it could happen.

Instead, I am sitting here trying to comprehend how we have reached thirty-six in a single year.

And I am scared.

I am scared of what comes next. I am scared that another headline will appear before the families affected by this one have even had time to breathe. I am scared that the next tragedy will be met with the same arguments, the same outrage, the same temporary attention, and the same eventual silence.

I am scared that we are teaching our children to accept fear as an ordinary part of growing up.

And I am heartbroken that they might be learning that lesson from us.

What kind of future are we leaving them if the places where they are supposed to learn and grow become places they have to fear?

What kind of society do we become when parents have to consider the possibility that a school day could be their child's last?

And what does it say about us if we keep asking those questions without doing enough to change the answers?

I do not have a perfect solution to offer you over my pumpkin spice coffee. I am not going to pretend that one article, one conversation, or one opinion will fix something this complicated.

But I know that doing nothing is not a solution.

I know that shrugging our shoulders is not a solution.

And I know that treating dead children as the inevitable cost of living in this country is something we should never accept.

Not quietly.

Not eventually.

Not ever.

A Final Word From Miss Lil

So today, dear readers, I am setting my coffee down for a moment.

The donuts can wait. The bagels can wait. The usual chatter can wait.

Because somewhere, a parent is grieving a child they expected to watch grow up.

Somewhere, a family is trying to figure out how to face tomorrow when yesterday has left them shattered.

Somewhere, a teacher is carrying the weight of what happened in a classroom where children should have been safe.

And somewhere, a child who survived is going to have to wake up tomorrow and figure out how to return to a world that suddenly feels a little less safe.

I think about those parents who have chosen not to release their children's names, and I hope they are surrounded by people who will protect them from the noise.

I think about the teacher and the bystander whose courage helped stop the attack, and I hope they receive the support they need after what they experienced.

I think about the sixteen-year-old who carried out this violence, the mother who reportedly purchased the firearm, and all the questions that still need answers. Accountability matters. Facts matter. Understanding how this happened matters.

But above all, I think about the children who should have had more time.

More birthdays.

More school days.

More holidays, more laughter, more arguments over silly things, more opportunities to discover what they loved and who they would become.

More life.

They deserved that.

Every single one of them.

And I am so damn sorry that they did not get it.

Thirty-six school shootings in 2026.

Thirty-six.

I wish I could tell you that I believe this will be the last one. I wish I could sit here with my coffee and my bagel and promise you that the next headline will be about something wonderful, something hopeful, something that reminds us the world is still capable of getting things right.

But I cannot make that promise.

All I can do is ask that we refuse to become numb. That we refuse to let these children become numbers we forget by next week. That we respect the families who want privacy, support those who need help, and demand real answers from the people with the power to make changes.

And that we remember what all of this is supposed to be about.

Not political victories.

Not arguments on social media.

Not clicks, ratings, or whose opinion gets the most attention.

Children. Their lives. Their futures. Their right to grow up.

That is what this should be about.

Every damn time.

So, readers, if you have children, hug them a little tighter today. If you know a teacher, tell them you appreciate what they do. If someone you love is struggling, check on them. And if you feel the same exhaustion and heartbreak I do, do not let that feeling turn into indifference.

Let it remind you that we still care.

Because I refuse to believe that we have reached a point where the deaths of children are simply something we are expected to get used to.

I refuse to believe that thirty-six is a number we should accept.

And I refuse to stop asking what the hell happened to us.

Rest in peace, little ones.

You should have had so much more time.

And to the families left behind, may you be given the privacy, compassion, and room to grieve that every family deserves.

Miss Lil is going to finish her coffee now.

It has gone cold.

Much like my heart feels when I look at the world we are leaving to our children.

And, for once, I really wish I had something better to say.

Until next time, readers, take care of one another. Check on your people. Hold your babies close.

And please, for the love of everything good in this world, let us do better.

Because thirty-six is already thirty-six too many.

Love, a heartbroken and exhausted Miss Lil. 🖤