DuBose: Remembering the NIU shooting
It’s hard to fathom, but Sunday was the two-year anniversary of the tragic shootings at Northern Illinois University in Dekalb. Five students were killed by a lone gunman, a former graduate student who suddenly appeared on the stage in their classroom wearing black clothing and a blank expression.
Without a word, he shot up the lecture hall and then took himself out.
• • •
The morning after, I turned on the radio, as I often do before school. Sometimes the kids and I dance or sing as we rub the sleep out of our eyes and move through our routines. That morning we brushed our teeth, pulled on socks and shoes, packed lunches and hunted for missing mittens and lost library books.
The usual. It was comforting and familiar, a fact I appreciated after hearing such awful news the day before.
I recall that I’d apparently not washed the ‘right’ pants for Noah to wear to school. The sour note passed and I made a mental note to teach him how to do his own laundry. I was a tad peeved, but managed a moment of gratitude that our frustrations are so small.
But then a radio announcer burst my illusory bubble:
"Six are dead. The motive for the shooting is not known at this time," she soberly reported. I hustled to hit the tuner button but was too late.
"Is that near here?" Noah asked. "Do you think Brittany is scared?" he added, wondering about our babysitter, a student at NIU. Noah was not alone with his worries.
I know we can limit our children’s diet of bad news and reassure them with Happy Meals, consistent routines, warm snuggles and fairy tales, but what can we do to prevent this awful thing from happening to them? Can we?
Perhaps.
We can feel helpless and impotent at times of tragedy or we can ponder our own little corners of the world and recognize how powerful we truly are to make a difference. That’s especially true for us parents. I believe that when we choose to tear other people down we become part of the problem, part of what gives rise to seemingly random acts of violence like the one at NIU. But when we model for our children how to choose kindness over ridicule and to heed that little voice inside that discourages them from piling on when the other kids are bullying someone – and how to speak up on behalf of someone who doesn't have a voice – then I think we have a hand in the solution.
We can use a mobile over a baby's bed or drop pebbles into puddles to illustrate this point. When we tug on one object on the mobile, the others are affected and react. And when we drop that pebble, ripples of water, of energy, move out to places we didn't directly touch. I believe the same is true of our thoughts, feelings and actions, and I think that even the youngest of our children can appreciate this.
How many times have we heard about a gunman being slighted by someone or suffering some disappointment, who in his suicide note points to that incident as having been the 'last straw?' Whether or not he has a documented mental illness or predisposition for one, the cumulative effect of these disappointments and slights proves to be more than he can bear. Remember the 1993 movie “Falling Down”? The film, starring Michael Douglas, is a fictionalized portrayal of the random acts of violence perpetrated by one man fed-up with alienation and disappointment.
We may never fully comprehend what caused a beautiful, innocent baby boy to grow up and grow rageful enough to perpetrate a Valentine's Day massacre at NIU.
But what if we could know? That a smirk at a fashion-challenged passerby, a derisive comment to a telemarketer who may not have any other work prospects, or that a missed opportunity to offer a kind word to a lonely neighbor would have that 'last straw' effect that leads to tragedy? What if a person's 'rage meter' was as plain as day, like a thermometer stuck on his forehead? What if we could tell just how close he was to blowing his cork? Would we still do it? Would we still be lazy and not think before we speak, act or fail to act? Would we want our kids to see us harming others in this way? Do we?
I'll risk a cliché and invoke a 'random acts of kindness' challenge to all of us this Valentine’s Day. No need to spend a dime or even be a ‘goody-two-shoes’ and collect canned goods and gently-worn clothing.
We just need to be kind. It matters.
