This video on Intergenerational Trauma was shared with me by a former student upon seeing my post on FB about feeling wrecked by the news of the mass shooting at El Paso Texas yesterday, 2019 08 03. It’s a lovely bit of story telling and it points a direction towards healing.

My partner has noted that I am sad a lot and suggests I should see someone. I acknowledge that I feel a great sadness often. Sometimes they are moments of grief which, I have been told, arise at random. Other times the source of sadness is easy enough to see.

I am concerned for the people I know from El Paso, and who live there. We once shopped at the Cielo Vista mall. It is close to where we once lived. The population is such that it’s likely I had some connection with someone who was present, who was injured, or who perished.

This shooting echoed for me the night of the Aurora movie theatre shooting in Denver. On first blush it may seem irrational. Yet, both were premeditated and carried out with military style assult weapons by a perpetrator who is a youngish white man. The night of the Aurora shooting there was a 50% chance that my children were in that theater. The film was only premiering in two locations in town.