The shootings in Orlando have been weighing on my mind and my soul.  Nothing I say is anything groundbreaking.  But I still want to say it.  My heart is broken again.  It happens a lot these days.  Because when I woke up and looked at my phone on Sunday morning, I saw the news that so many moms would be receiving a call telling her that her child is dead.  And I’m all too familiar with the shock. The fear.  The confusion.  And I know it hurts many moms all over again.  Sends them reeling back to a night when they got a call.  I remember, although I was young so the details are murky, when my mom and grandma had to call my aunt who lived half a world a way to tell her that her son had been murdered.  How do you make that call?  How do you hear it?  How do you keep breathing?  The loss of my child happened under different circumstances, but I know suffocating pain—and I don’t wish it upon anyone.

And then I’m sickened that within hours people were on-line fighting about gun control and Muslims and mental illness and whether we should label it a hate crime or a terrorist attack.  And all I can think is ‘who the fuck cares what you call it”?  Another world has been ripped to shreds.  Another family will always miss that face.  That smile.   That heartbeat.

I’m not getting into a political debate over it. I’m not saying we shouldn’t debate these things.  We should.  There is obviously a problem.  But right now I just hurt for the moms and families and friends of those who died.  And my heart hurts for all of us.