i live right by that house.

i told you a few posts back about the woman who sold her plasma to pay her bills. well, tonight, one of our students came in and asked if she could have last week's work. i told her that i was sure we could get that and told her that i'd missed her last wednesday.

she said "i'm sorry, but did you see that thing on the news about the home that the shots were fired into last week?" and i said "yeah, i saw that. scary."

(Someone sprayed bullets into a home downtown while a woman and her four children were sleeping. (Her husband was at work.) Some of the bullets were shot straight into a bedroom where her two sons were asleep, straight between the top and bottom bunks where they lay. The woman had fallen asleep in her daughters' room, but if she'd been asleep in her own, it's likely that she'd have been killed. it's dumb luck and a miracle that no one was killed. This was a nice family. A nice, poor family in a crappy neighborhood. police really have no idea the motive, but they think now that the shooters thought the house belonged to someone else.)

Then the girl continued. She said "i live right by that house. and i've been really shook up. i haven't been able to sleep or nothin' i couldn't get to class last wednesday. i haven't been able to do hardly nothin'"

i said, "wow. yeah. that's awful. i can only imagine how freaked out you must be. glad you're back tonight. we'll make sure you get your work from last week."

because what else could i say? that i knew with certainty that her coming back to class tonight, her trying to get back into her normal routine was nothing short of courageous. because it really was, i think. but it seemed to wierd to say it outloud. i don't know. but i didn't say it. just thought it really loud.

she went into class. i went to work on my stuff.

but it was a few minutes before i could concentrate. i was thinking about all the trauma in the world. happening every day. . the trauma that is experienced first hand. and then also trauma that is witnessed. or trauma that hits too close to home. or even sometimes, trauma that feels close to home, either because you realize how very randomly bad things can happen to anyone of us at any time or because you empathize so greatly with someone.

and i was thinking that so many of us take for granted that we live in "safe" places. or that we are healthy. or that we have recovered from something that shook us to our cores. that we have understanding friends and the supports that we need to make our ways in the world. that our families are ok. we most of us are very lucky, you know. we need to remember those things.

because potentially, we all kind of "live right by that house."