Let me say, first thing that I've been away from this space for too long. I was paralyzed. Our community has been in shock because on Mar. 5, Eve Carson, the student body president at UNC-Chapel Hill was leaving the house she shared with roommates, on her way to do something for class when two young men with a gun happened to see her. They took her car and ATM card, and in return they got $200 and her life. She was 22 years old.
This hit especially hard for me because when my daughter was a 22-year-old college student she was, like Eve, approached by two men with a gun. They pushed her to the ground, put the gun to her head threatening over and over again to kill her because she was fumbling with her keys and wallet. My daughter was not killed. And for that I am eternally, heart-stoppingly grateful. I am grateful that 'our' gunmen were....what? Nicer? Smarter? Older and less reckless? They wanted her car not her life.
My gratitude for my daughter's life has made me more acutely aware of the grief felt by those who loved Eve and every other mother who has lost a child to gun violence. There but for the click of a trigger go I. So I've been paralyzed, not wanting to think about guns or write about gun violence. This epidemic is insidious and silent - it's an epidemic that kills and causes physical injury. But it's greatest threat is wounds it inflicts on our souls.
