The Missing

A mother runs.

I keep thinking about all of the people who are missing their loved ones tonight. The littles who were just doing the normal thing of being in a church before school started. The littles who were in classrooms in all the school years for the last 26 years, they weren’t in wrong places at wrong times.

They are all missing.

And a mother runs. Running towards the end. Not knowing what she’ll find, but hope and terror are the wind at her back. The road doesn’t exist, she’s flying.

So many are missing.

I keep thinking about the phrase “no words”, but we do. We have so many words. The words aren’t missing- the children are.

The guns didn’t steal our words, they keep stealing our children.

I keep thinking about the littles, the way their backpacks are wrapped around their little bodies, the way their faces look when they’re so excited to be with their friends and to learn new things. They don’t know to be afraid yet. They don’t know to run yet.

But a mother does. A mother runs for her life and the life of her family. A mother runs and runs and runs to beat the fear, the blinding panic, the relentless burning desire to find and keep what’s hers safe.

A mother runs for the missing. Wild with hope that she’s not too late.

So many are missing.

I keep thinking about how we keep saying “never again” , and then we do it all over again. Never again just becomes again and again. The never falls away and goes missing, right along with the children. The guns replace the never. The guns replace the missing.

And a mother runs. Trying to be faster than the speeding bullets.

A mother runs, trying to outrun the missing of all that’s lost.

So many are missing.

If only we loved the missing more than the guns.

If only a mother didn’t have to run.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

My heart breaks and breaks and breaks for every person who has lost someone or been impacted by gun violence.

It doesn’t have to be this way.