Robb Elementary School

It has been over a year since the attack at Robb Elementary School that occurred in May. It is said that other than any other month, May wants us to feel more alive. We should feel like we are up in the sky, and no one can bring us down but on May 24th, it was supposed to be a good day until I discovered something that I did not think would happen.

“What is wrong?!” whined my mother, she could not process what she was seeing. To her and everybody else, it was coming out of nowhere.

“Stupid boy done shot up the damn school!” she yelled. I can hear her frustration in her voice because our walls are not soundproof. I can tell when she is watching the news because she always these angry outbursts while saying how she feels.

I did not find out about the shooting through the mainstream media but another form of media. Social media is a curse and blessing. When I opened TikTok, the first video on my For You page was about the massacre. I scrolled down to the next video and then next... Videos of people sharing their sorrowful messages about the victims, mothers were asking themselves whether that could have been their child after they have dropped them off at school, and others were writing angry messages about the tragedy.

I will admit that I did not cry on that day, but I only felt this sharp pain in my stomach. It does this turn whenever I hear terrible news or when someone brings up something bad, I have this uneasy feeling. It is like when you become numb to an ongoing tragedy that has happened in America for the longest time because this is not our first, and this is not even our second. I wanted to mention other videos that I saw on my timeline on that day. These posts were Christians spreading spiritual messages about the shooting and it gave me the inspiration to draft this story.

As I put these videos together, it was like a debate between the spiritual and psychological worlds. Some Christians were pissed at America for doing the one thing that they knew was a big mistake, fifty-eight years ago. In 1962, Engel v. Vitale was a landmark where the Supreme Court ruled that prayer in public schools was a violation of the First Amendment. They believed that ever since the Lord’s prayer was banned from our education system, these school shootings continue to happen. Christians believe in the power of prayer, and they could be right about what happened on May 24th.

It could have been the work of the enemy because it seems to me that he likes to pull strings of teenage boys but when you say spiritual, you are telling me that the fate of children and adults were sealed. You also say that this day was meant to happen and there was nothing that could have prevented this. On the other hand, any mental health expert will say the complete opposite. I watched a couple of videos and read articles of psychiatrists and crime psychologists doing their analysis of the shooter and I see it from their perspectives because of the pieces that I put together. There is nothing to justify the murder of twenty-one people, but I understand the warning signs and power of influence within school shooters. (As I stated in one of my previous articles)

A man had admitted that back in 2003, it could have been a school shooting and that perpetrator was his friend. One day, the boy asked him if he wanted to be his partner in the shooting and he told him no. He told his mother about the disturbing request from his friend and my mother let the school know. The school sent the boy to counseling and he never saw his friend again. Imagine if he did not tell someone about this, who knows if this boy could have gone solo and who knows how many kids could have died.

He never said the state nor the school because he wanted to keep it anonymous. Do you all understand the timing for these tragedies to happen? We live in a country with over fifty states. Anything can happen at any time. It breaks my heart that parents will never see their children grow up to be the amazing adults that they would have been.

Sometimes life can grab a knife and stab you in the gut, leaving you to bleed because it does not let you take a tragedy and rewind everything, so it could have gone the way you wanted. Once it happens, it will stay like that forever.

The mother of one of the victim's regrets leaving her daughter at the school, and she should not feel like that as a parent. School should be a place where parents should not have to worry about the danger presented from inside and outside. Parents should not bury their children when their children are supposed to be burying them.

My conclusion: the danger was headed to that school and in that one classroom and it took this long to show itself after gathering the information that is concealed from the public. Those children knew someone that they did not know was connected to the danger. May the victims at Robb Elementary School rest in peace and fly into the light.

Question of the day: Do you think this was spiritual or psychological?