I don't know yet

 I was in Tucson last Friday Night. I stayed up very, very late looking for jackets. I found a nice leather one on sale at Macy's and planned to go get it the next morning at a mall near where the shooting took place. (If you don't know what shooting I'm talking about, please turn on the news for a moment or check online or something, but don't make me explain it - seriously, it's painful. Please do not tell me "I don't watch the news" because honestly, that's worse. This was not only a national story, but an international one. Get a clue. Check out NPR.) The mall is technically a block away from Ina and Oracle, but of course when my family and I heard the news the "what if" questions started. "What if I had decided to go to the store?" "What if I visited my friend who works on that corner and I saw the political rally?" Shaken by the terrible news I got on my scheduled flight to come back to LA. At that time, I was only aware of the names of a few of the victims.

Sunday I worked at my church for most of the day and that night I hung out with a lot of friends and ate Lumpia.  Monday I returned to work, and did my best to keep up, not having time to get through all my emails since I had been gone so long on vacation, nor did I have time to check facebook. It wasn't until Tuesday that I received a message, telling me my high school friend Gabe had been killed in the shooting.

A friend was in my office when I read it. I was shocked. I didn't know what to do. After sitting shaking with my mouth open I went to my car and called my mother. She saw the name, but figured he wouldn't be my friend Gabe because he was 30. "Mom, I'm 30." She told me she still thinks of me and my friends as kids. She told me to go upstairs and put sugar in my tea and that would help with the shock and shaking. It did...on Tuesday at least.

I spent lots of time looking at his facebook page, which is now just information, the wall is gone. I was trying to remember the last thing I said to him, probably some congratulations when he got engaged... I looked on the pages of my fellow high school friends - most of them found out Saturday or Sunday, their posts expressing their shock and sadness. It just doesn't seem right that such an easy-going, fun guy should be gunned down by some crazy. It doesn't seem real.

I got the funeral information yesterday, but I can't get back to Tucson, so I contributed to some flowers a friend was sending from our very close knit, very small high school class and I decided to  make a donation to the ASU School of Social Work Gabe Zimmerman Scholarship Fund in his honour. It just doesn't feel like enough. His father said he wanted Gabe to be remembered. I will remember him, I certainly will, in fact, I've been trying to find some life changing lesson in all this.

Tuesday I said to myself "You've got to be extra nice to everyone, every moment counts..." but in the last couple days I've been grouchy, short, and have not wanted to speak to anyone. I've put on a fake smile to the best of my ability and my moments of genuine happiness have been few and far between. Extremes are normal. I'll go from laughing at a joke to remembering what happened in an instant. I haven't been able to wrap my head around what happened or why it's affecting me so much, at times, I feel like I should be fine and move on.

Wednesday night on the way to Creative Arts I listened to President Obama's speech at the Memorial service for all the victims. I sobbed and sobbed fully aware of the stares I received from the cars next to me, but unable to even make a safe decision to pull over. After it was over, I couldn't get out of my car; couldn't even move. How was I supposed to go inside to rehearsal and act like everything was fine. Eventually I went in, it was torture. Of the 4 people who asked what was wrong, none of them knew about the shooting. It's hard enough to say "a friend was killed" without having to explain the whole bloody thing. I left and cried on the way home.

Thursday was busy. That's when I got the funeral info and decided not to go and then chatted with a friend. After that there was so much going on that I didn't have too much time to dwell on what happened. Every now and then I was reminded by my shaking hands or a news blurb about the progress of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords. Later that day, when almost everyone else had gone and I was walking out, I just started crying...I got in my car and bawled. To me, this seems like an irrational reaction.

The question I'm hating right now is "How are you?" 1. Because I'm noticing how many people don't ask, and don't care. 2. Because so many people ask, but it's just part of their greeting and they don't care and 3. Because if they do care, I don't want to answer. It's all just too unbelievable.

I decided to write this out because I feel like there is something I can gather from all this. So far I've come up with "Live every day to the full" (I plan to start that soon) and "Take the time to reach out and stay connected with friends and loved ones." (Again, I plan to start that soon, when I'm not feeling like such a jerk.) I guess there's always the adage, "Live each day like it's your last." But there has to be more to learn...I'm hoping I'm a few steps closer to wrapping my head around it. For now, I'm just allowing myself to just be. I'm still trusting in God and I'm still singing worship songs and reading the Bible, I'm still laughing and watching TV, but there's a sadness there and for the moment, it's just going to have to be what it is. I'm giving myself grace, at least for a few more days.