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I had another topic planned for today, but I simply must acknowledge what happened in Colorado this past weekend. I can add no facts to the story. I can add no philosophical thought that has not yet been offered. I have no poetic phrases. I simply have, as all Americans do, a broken heart.
Well, I do have one more thing: I have a continued admiration for how men and women respond when the chips are at their lowest.
I can't imagine for a moment the chaos that broke out in that theatre when wide-eyed humans sat like plastic ducks at a shooting gallery...and then did whatever they could to survive.
There is the story of the boyfriend who used his body to shield his girlfriend from the unrelenting gunfire...and died in the effort. His girlfriend lived.
There is the voice of the 911 operator who responded to the call of massive gunfire at a theatre with such calm I could almost picture her sipping coffee in the process. Well done...it was her job to radiate calm and dispatch help.
There is the city of Aurora, Colorado, nestled into metropolitan Denver...a mile high, but at the foot of the omnipotent Rocky Mountains. Indeed this city's first responders, doing what first responders do-and that's a high compliment-doing their jobs under the most horrific of circumstances.
There is the police officer who, not waiting for an ambulance, hurried a critically wounded man to his patrol car and rushed him to the hospital saving his life.
Oh...and there are the EMTs, doctors and nurses that helped save the lives of so many more...toiling through the night, treating the fifty-eight injured.
There are the police who found the coward waiting at his car and arrested him.
There were the FBI and bomb experts from Denver who worked for almost two days painstakingly picking apart the booby-trapped web left at the coward's apartment...minimizing loss of property, preventing any more loss of life and preserving critical evidence.
Many more heroic stories will come to light in the days ahead, confirming the capacity we have to be heroic. My admiration to you all.
Now to the families and friends, the boyfriends and the girlfriends, wives and husbands, the fathers and the mothers of the twelve that the coward took away...to you I wish Godspeed. No words will console you...certainly not from me.
But Americans are for you...and all the world embraces you. Your wounds will not soon heal...and that's as it should be. For fast-binding wounds are not wounds at all. The hole in your hearts will linger...the vacancy once filled by your loved one.
I simply hope that life becomes good to you...no one deserves the pain you feel.
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