We Are Tired of Being Sad

The TV screen flashed from horror to horror. Another mass shooting. Ten people obliterated in an instant. Never knowing what hit them. The newscaster cannot give a succinct explanation. All he can say is that it is sad.

Today is shopping day. The old woman in the tiny house with the peace sign in her yard plans to go to the market. For a while as she gets ready, she wonders if she should. Maybe it isn’t safe anymore to go to the market. Weren’t those people gunned down at a supermarket?

She turns up the volume on the TV to listen to the announcer. The victims, all different sexes and ages, were mostly black. The old woman looks closely at the screen. The perpetrator was just a kid, she sees. What did the announcer say? Eighteen? He is eighteen. And he drove over 200 miles to get to that supermarket so he could kill 10 people.

Fiddling with her shopping list, she picks up her handbag and stuffs the list inside. She sits down in her lounge chair and continues to listen to the report. No one can explain why this child decided to commit this horrendous crime. They say he was filled with racist hatred. Later, when he finally gives a reason for his rant, he says it all started during Covid with the isolation. He began to visit racist sites on his computer. He says he cooked this whole thing up because “he was bored.”

It is getting late, and the old woman likes to shop in the evening when the store is less crowded. Things are getting scarce on the shelves. One cannot always find all the items needed. Often it means going to more than one market. She doesn’t purchase the high-end groceries because she doesn’t want to use up the funds on her EBT card. Even with the limited income she gets every month, the government only allows her $67 in food stamps. It’s not enough, even for just one person. So she shops very selectively, taking her time to check the prices. She knows she will go over her limit and must make up the difference with her debit card. Once in the handicap parking spot in front of the market, she turns off the ignition and sits for a minute, looking around. Would she be able to recognize a shooter if there were one?

Finally home as darkness descends, the old woman parks in her driveway, lifts the latch on the hatchback and begins to tote in her bags of groceries. Her cats sit waiting patiently on the front step a foot or two beyond the peace sign that rests on the ground up against the ice plant bush. She’s been meaning to work on the sign, spruce it up a bit. People walking their dogs along the street every evening often comment on it. “Ah, peace,” they say as they nod at her. “Yes, it would be nice, wouldn’t it?” she answers. They murmur assent, shaking their heads positively and then walk on. The old woman wonders if they ever genuinely think about the idea of peace. Have they ever heard the word nonviolence?

As she empties the grocery bags, putting away her food in the refrigerator and on the shelf, she can’t help pondering that killer, that boy, that bored child. How is it that we have nothing for a youngster to do when he is bored? How does boredom devolve into mass murder?

They say it is the lack of gun control. If we didn’t have guns so easy to obtain, these things wouldn’t happen. That’s what she hears as she flicks on the tv to listen to a special broadcast about gun violence. She hits the guide button on the remote to see what other programs might be airing now, hoping to find a nature show. The old woman would much rather watch lions tearing into the carcass of a wildebeest than listen to ruminations of excuses on the special broadcast. She knows it isn’t about guns. At least the lions are not bored.

And then another day dawns on a new horror: 19 children massacred along with two teachers in a small town in Texas. It is too much to take in, too much to process. She can’t get the comment of the earlier announcer out of her mind. “It is sad,” he said. 

She knows she will not sleep well tonight with those words running around in her mind and the vision of young lives lost while her life is near the end. She knows it isn’t enough to place a peace sign in the garden. She realizes that she still has time to do something about this. She picks up a pen and notepad and jots down all the comments, all her thoughts. 

Tomorrow is another day. It is the first of many days where she knows if she works at it, she can make a difference. It is not too late.

The old woman peers at her writings. On the top of the paper in the notepad, she places a title in bold, capital letters: WE ARE TIRED OF BEING SAD!