"I'm okay, mom. I'm safe. Hope you're busy working and not watching the news. Love you!" 12:07 p.m. 04/17/25 [View all]

[Pacifist Patriot]

That was the first of an avalanche of texts I received while in a Zoom meeting yesterday. Everyone in my life who knows my son works at FSU texted to tell me the news of the active shooter.

I know the campus well. My son earned both his bachelor's and master's degrees there and now works for the university. My daughter earned her bachelor's and started her master's degree there. It has been a second home for us for a decade. Literally, I co-own a condo with my son in Tally.

Over the the next few hours I learned that:

* my neighbor's son was locked down in Bellamy, a kid I have adored since he was in diapers, texting my son how terrified he was but didn't want his parents to know.
* one of my daughter's friends was in Oglesby at the time of the shooting texting with her in Boston to try to stay calm. She didn't realize she had peed herself until the police got them out. The kid on the floor next to her, a stranger holding her hand, had been at Parkland.
* one of my son's close friends had classes with the shooter (He's in the TSC political discourse group the media is mentioning - they sent me screen shots) and immediately identified him as a white supremacist who worships Trump. He introduced himself to his International Relations class by saying "multiculturalism and communism is destroying America."

There are a few other connections I won't mention that meant I was getting information well before the media. Which leads me to my plea.

My sister has a friend who is a trauma/tragedy junkie. She was constantly sending information being pushed out by an internet media outlet in our area of the state over 300 miles away. They reported things like:

* four dead, five injured
* more than a dozen casualties
* at least two shooters, there may be a third

well before anything concrete could be determined. She was pissed because the police waited until 4:30 to have a press briefing. I blocked her.

I know I am preaching to the choir here, but have to say it anyway. Our 24-hour media circus plus immediate communication capabilities has created a horror show of instant demand for info regardless of the veracity and validity.

Every shooting angers me. Every shooting depresses me. Every shooting rattles me. Some shootings hit me in ways I don't see coming. And for reasons I can sometimes never figure out. I know why this one had me sobbing in the shower this morning. I got ""I'm okay, mom. I'm safe. Hope you're busy working and not watching the news. Love you!" Too many Americans get texts like this one and way too many get the last text from their loved one that they'll ever receive. No one should get texts like these ever!

I have no words for how much I detest the NRA, the Republican party, white supremacists, Trump and Trumpism, gun manufacturers, and gun fetishists right now. A primal scream may be all I can manage. I'm so angry. So sad. So hopeless. Sunday marks 26 years since Columbine. 26 years!!! That's longer than so many school children have been allowed to live because of spineless greedy politicians.

I don't even know how to end my rant so I'll just stop here.