We all had reasons to be grumpy when we woke up on Monday morning.
Whether we were still hungover from the weekend, worried about our rents and mortgages being higher than our paycheques, frustrated at a friend or family member or stuck in a bad memory we couldn’t shake, life looked hard. It is hard.
Then, through phones, laptops, and coffee lineups, we heard the news.
An armed maniac had fired an automatic weapon into a crowd outside his Las Vegas hotel room window, killing at least 59 and injuring over 500 others.
Whatever personal problems we were allowing to weigh us down were instantly forgotten, cast aside by a paralyzing heartbreak, not only for the victims, but for the loved ones who’d lost them.
The terror that unfolded Sunday night was all we could talk about, but what could we say?
We’ve all been in tough spots, but how many of us can fathom where our minds would go if we had heard that news while loving somebody who was there?
As information began streaming in Monday morning, we started seeing the faces of victims. Quotes and online posts from those who loved them told us who they had been and what they had meant to their worlds.
Some were from our province, some from our Island, each one of them held someone’s heart.
Strangers to us were vital to others.They were valued. They were needed.
There was no reason for the light they shone on their surroundings to be stolen by a terrorist who would never know them or the positive impact they had.
Any questions around why Stephen Paddock lost his humanity at the age of 64 will never be answered. He made sure of that by making himself his last victim.
“There’s absolutely no way I could conceive that my brother would shoot a bunch of people that he didn’t know,” the shooter’s brother Eric told reporters, desperate to find some perspective.
Terror never has answers. Only questions met with bewilderment.
The focus shouldn’t be on finding reason for evil.
A countless amount of people have received the worst news possible. The focus should be on them. Listening to them and loving them.
Each one of the fallen has a story that deserves to be told and loved ones who deserve to tell it.
Terror will always shake us, but love will always connect us.