The Things We Leave Behind
By Rachel Blume
Disclaimer: The contents of this article explore sensitive topics. Reader discretion is advised.
Recently, I thought about when my son, now three and a half, was first entering preschool in Texas. I looked online to see what I could find for children’s body armor. Sweatshirts made out of Kevlar, backpacks with heavy, bulletproof inserts. They were so expensive and he was so little; it felt like thinking something into existence. I closed out of the browser and never looked again for the rest of our time in Texas.
When I first decided to come to Alaska, one of the earliest conversations I had with my friends was on what I would take with me from Texas. At home, I sifted through piles of belongings, each item moving into categories named “take” or “leave.” I planned on driving through Canada, so I had to leave the Smith and Wesson case under the bed and set the hunting rifle in a closet.
Last year, there was a single mass shooting in all of Alaska. Only one person died. In Texas, there were over 55 in the same period of time. As I drove through Canada and crossed into Alaska, this data felt like another thing I left behind. My son started preschool here and I didn’t worry about him while he was playing with blocks and learning about how animals hibernate.
As a Texas parent, hearing there was an active shooter in a school in the North Star Borough, I felt my heart jump up into my throat. As the time wore on and the police hadn’t confirmed any fatalities, my unease subsided and I thought it must have been a hoax. It was. Both calls were within thirty minutes of each other.
Sometimes I think it’s just me that’s so afraid of a school shooting, but I have a colleague who has survived a mass shooting in university. I have never asked her about it, save one time. It was obviously upsetting and I never asked her again.
Another colleague also has a child in school in the North Star Borough. When I told her there was a second “sit tight,” she looked afraid. I was already of the mind it was another hoax, but I can’t unsee her fear.
A few nights ago, after my young son was bathed and changed into his Sonic the Hedgehog pajamas, I found myself again searching online for Kevlar-based sweatshirts and backpacks with metal inserts.
There are always those who say it will never happen here, that this community is too close. However, I was in West Texas when the Uvalde shooting happened. I was working on a ranch that would see a conglomerate of boy scouts in the summer and there were shotguns and rifles on site. Just in case, I trained my three-year-old to pull the plug from the wall and climb into a metal, top load washing machine, where he was to wait until I came for him. I once timed him during a lunch break and he was quiet for over 20 minutes.
I thought I had left this part of Texas behind, the fear of school shootings, but I think it traveled with me. Why, I’m not sure. Maybe it was on its way here anyway and I just happened to take the same migratory path. Ultimately, I’ll hug my little boy every day and kiss him before school. I’ll wait diligently at the stop sign for his special education bus in the afternoon and I will pray every night that when I let him go each morning, he comes home to me. Then, when he is a teenager, wanting to feel a part of something bigger or full of hurt from his peers, I’ll show him every photograph I can pull together of him as a little boy and relive every moment together, so that when we drive down the road and wait for the children, both little and his peers, to cross the street, I can emphasize that they have mothers, too. Besides voting on policies once a year and teaching him to stay quiet in the dark, there’s really nothing else I can do.