We Mourn with You, Oxford, Michigan Students and Families

 Most, if not all, of you have undoubtedly heard of the recent tragic school shooting in Oxford, Michigan, where four teens were killed and many others wounded (including a teacher). It is yet another tragedy that leaves devastated families, numerous unanswered questions, and embroiled passions in its wake. People are angry, and rightly so, that these tragedies keep occurring. When will it stop? How many more children must die? 

Sadly, these tragedies lead to much vitriolic debate on both sides of the political aisle about how to solve these crises. Would strict gun control stop the violence? Probably not, since another recent tragedy that took the lives of a number of people occurred when someone plowed a car into a crowd. Would metal detectors and a strong police presence in school stop these tragedies? Probably not, since guns can now be made with plastic. 

All the finger pointing, blame shifting, and political wrangling does nothing to solve the terrible angst of four families who lost their children, and the many others whose children are recovering from gunshot wounds or dealing with their exposure to the horror from that day. We need to address this persistent problem, gun violence in American schools, but it's a problem that requires tact and proper timing. 

The families of the four teens who died, and those who survived, deserve time to process their pain. They deserve the unified support of their community, politicians from both sides of the aisle, and the nation as a whole. They deserve to know that we feel their pain, we mourn with them in their losses, and we honor their children who died tragically and senselessly. 

And when they have privacy again, to fully grieve their losses, that will be the time for the politicians, the community leaders, and the parents of school children to confront the difficult challenges of stopping the violence. Solutions to this problem will not be easy. They will require sacrifice, selflessness, and sober earnestness. These solutions will require out of the box thinking. 

As a nation, we have to be willing to tighten our gun laws, but those would not have stopped this tragedy. We have to be willing to address, head on, the mental health crisis in our country. But that would not have stopped this tragedy either. We have to teach parents to better recognize the signs of mental illness or mental break in their children, but that might not have stopped this tragedy either. 

We have to do something to address the problem, but we also have to recognize that we live in a world where tragedy cannot be stopped. People hurt each other senselessly, and sometimes there is no easy or discernable cause. Maybe this shooter was bullied, but so are tens of thousands of children. Let's try to stop bullying, but also recognize that we cannot stop it all. Let's start by trying to stop it in our local school.

It's easy to believe that we could have stopped a tragedy, because as humans we want to think we are powerful enough to control human behavior. Human behavior is messy, though, and it is often senseless. Sadly, it leaves devastated lives in its wake. So, let's try to solve the problems, yes, but let's also remember that compassion and unity go a long way when tragedy leaves a trail of tears.