Annunciation parent: This violence is not normal

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My children, ages 4 and 5, were victims of the Annunciation Church shooting last week. So were classmates, teachers, neighbors, families, parishioners and many more.

I’m heartbroken this happened. That the third day of school was marred by something my kids may carry forever, even though they weren’t physically harmed. That the joy of a new school year gave way to fear almost instantly. That children died in a place they felt safe.

I’m sad knowing this will happen again — in another school, in another town — and we’ll do it all again. The GoFundMes. The social posts. The trauma interviews.

None of it lands. The stories, the tears, the sound bites — they fade. And then it happens again. Like it always does. Like this is just what it means to live here now.

I’ve watched children recount the day. I’ve seen horrific footage. I’ve heard from neighbors who ran toward the sound of gunfire. My kids are alive, and for that I’m deeply grateful — but my sense of their safety is gone, and I don’t know how to get it back. One child shielding their first-grade buddy from bullets should be enough. One parent saying, “I heard shooting, so I ran to save my children,” should be enough.

I’m still angry. But I’m also exhausted — because deep down, I don’t believe any of this will lead to change. And that exhaustion runs deeper than sadness. Because when we all know it will happen again, and we still don’t act, what are we saying?

Some politicians — and the people who keep them in power — have decided guns matter more than kids. More than life. We let political posturing take priority over collective safety.

So they deflect. They stall. And children die.

I’m angry that the Constitution has become a convenient excuse to avoid real solutions. That even when we know this will happen again, somehow that’s not enough.

I’m angry that society has a playbook for reacting to dead children — but still can’t answer the only question that matters: How do we stop it from happening again?

So here we are.

The day after the shooting, my HR director called me. About an hour before the call, I saw the first victim’s name and cried for the first time. Until then, the tragedy felt abstract.

When she asked how I was doing, I started sobbing.

I was in a park, watching my kids splash in water and run around, happy as can be, while I cried and asked about how to bill for my absence on my timesheets.

She told me I could take the week off to process this, to be with my family.

I’ve tried to make sense of it. I swing between wanting to know everything — motives, timings, descriptions — and shutting it all out. Details only make it worse, more real. As time passes, the narratives take shape: Sides are drawn, discourse settles and each camp clings to its version of the truth.

How many dead children are we willing to tolerate to protect some notion of freedom?

Is there any location — a church, school or theater — where we believe it is appropriate for innocents to be injured, or killed?

My kids attend a Catholic school. We knew what came with that — the prayers, the lessons, the moral messaging. But religion was never our driving reason. I’ve always respected the faith of those around me — even if it wasn’t something I claimed for myself. It felt like a harmless bonus, not the reason we enrolled.

I know others chose this school for different reasons, and I’m not trying to speak for them. But for our family, this shooting — or at least why it affected us how it did — comes down to practicality. We enrolled because it worked with our schedule and our kids’ morning energy levels. Early start, preschool on-site, close to home — it all made sense. We paid tuition because it met our needs. That felt worth it. Until it wasn’t.

My kids don’t identify as religious. They know a few prayers, a few stories — they once asked if Jesus dies every Friday or just on the good ones. We opted into the rituals and rhythms of Catholic school life because it worked for our family — not because we were devout.

If your instinct is to turn this into a debate about school choice, faith or parenting — stop. That’s not the conversation. Unless your argument begins and ends with one goal — fewer dead children — you’ve missed the only point that matters. Mental health? Worth discussing, if it leads to fewer dead kids. Public vs. private protections? Let’s talk, if the outcome is fewer dead kids. Gender identity and inclusion? That too — but only if the conclusion moves us toward fewer dead kids.

And let’s be honest about the real issue here: guns.

It always comes back to the guns.

We are not the only country with mental illness. Or social media. Or divided politics. But we are the only one where this happens again and again — and we shrug and stall because regulating weapons of war is somehow off the table. If the right to own these guns matters more than children’s right to live, then say that out loud. Let the rest of us decide how to live in a country like that.

We need to stop pretending it is and start deciding what we’ll do about it.