The Tragedies of Orlando
I don’t sass nearly as much as I used too (at least not publicly) but sometimes, just sometimes, you gotta say what you gotta say! So here goes.
I love Orlando, Florida, though not nearly much as my young children do and I am sure my affinity for the city now is largely due to them. As a family we journey there, or through there, annually visiting different venues each time. It is, after all, an international tourist hot spot thanks to Disney World, Epcot, Sea World, naval oranges, etc.
My love affair with the city began in the 90s as a north Florida resident who made the trek there quite often, sometimes weekly. I have many friends who call or have called the central Florida city home at some point.
It is with a heavy heart that I have watched all the very public tragedies unfold over the past five days in this city I know so well. Now every place has its share of turmoil and upheaval which is not all on display for the world to see but Orlandoans are experiencing that old adage of “when it rains it pours.”
I awoke Sunday to the same saddening news as the rest of the world—-the mass shooting in Orlando, the country’s worst to date.
I was up leisurely late at 8 and did what I always do, turn on the tube to see what happened in the world while I slept and what the weather might hold for that day. I typically turn it on and go about my other morning rituals as I listen for anything pertinent. But on Sunday when I saw the heading ‘Mass Shooting in Orlando’ I paused to watch a bit.
At first I thought this news story was a continuation from Friday’s publicized shooting in Orlando of a former reality TV singing contestant Christina Grimmie, formerly of “The Voice,” a show I tune into. I soon realized it was not the same story and not related.
Details were sketchy as it should have been since the standoff with the gunman had just ended three hours prior. Memories from Newtown, Columbine, Virginia Tech, and San Bernardino flooded my mind as I thought “here we go again.”
Not satisfied with the reports found on the morning news shows, I turned to the internet to see what I could learn. Now living in a digital era, I knew that someone who escaped the nightmare in that club would be posting their eyewitnesses in some form so I searched.
The first eyewitness account I ran across Sunday was that of Eddie Justice, a club patron who texted his mother when the shooting began to profess his love for her and urge law enforcement aid to those still inside like him. In the days since, there have been so many accounts from individuals inside and outside that Orlando club and hundreds more yet to be published but his has affected me the most.
He was a young man, regardless of age, ethnicity, sexual preference, trying simply to enjoy life with a night out after a week in the office working as an accountant. When I read his texts I didn’t see a gay man or a black man, I saw a person who loved his mother and in fear of his life told her so. He could have called 911, as I am sure others had, but he contacted “mom” not knowing if those moments would be his last but certainly fearing they would. I can’t imagine and never want to experience that agony his mother felt not knowing.
As Sunday progressed and more details about the wee morning horror availed themselves, I was anxious to see if Eddie had made it out alive. No news about him on Sunday, I thought about him that night and I prayed for his mother.
On the drive into work Monday, I heard via radio that Eddie did not make it. I prayed for his mother again. The official death toll had risen from 23 to 49 with more possible from Sunday morning to Monday morning.
Each day something new about the perpetrator comes forth and as some questions are answered dozen others are formed. I myself wondered why it took SWAT so long to enter the facility and end the standoff if the first rounds were fired at 2 a.m.? Why wasn’t the perpetrator flagged in the gun sales database as having been interviewed by the FBI thrice for possible terrorism?
Whatever the case, any answers now would seem moot to the survivors of those 49 people who died in that Orlando nightclub.
Fast forward to Tuesday night in Orlando (where a myriad of national news outlets had already set up shop to cover the senseless gun violence shootings), a two year-old boy is swiped off the shore of a ritzy Disney World resort by an alligator four times the toddler’s size.
As details unfold we now know the father, wading in the shallow waters with his son, jumped in to wrestle the gator. The mother jumped in too.
So as I turned on the tube Wednesday morning, the world was still focused on Orlando. Remains had not been found of that little boy enjoying his first trip to Disney World as search crews looked by water and by air.
Amongst all of these recent incidents and so many before in recent years, like the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, I still ponder how to BEST explain such happenings to my young precocious children.
I wonder what tomorrow’s news will bring.