I thought that for my first blog, I would write about something that's very near and dear to my heart right now.
You see, I live in McHenry Illinois, a small-ish town just an hour north of Chicago and down the road from DeKalb. Northern Illinois University, my (hopefully) future college is located in DeKalb. It is also the location of the most recent in a string of school shootings, infamously taking place on Feb. 14, 2008- Valentine's Day.
Ever since the shooting took place, everywhere you look you see someone trying to blame someone for what happened, and, let's face it: THERE ISN'T ANYONE TO BLAME. Sure, you can blame the guy's parents, but how were they to know he was contemplating shooting up his old college? And how can you blame his girlfriend? All she did was love him; there weren't any warning signs she could have spotted. Things like these happen and there isn't anything we can do about them.
I think the thing that's bothering me the most is that I KNEW the gunman. Not personally, not really, but he used to volunteer at my church when I was very young. The Steven Kazmierczak I knew then was a funny, intellectual who cared more about others than himself. I'm not saying there wasn't something wrong with him (after all, my last interaction with him was when I was 10), but it's hard to label him a monster. He did something terrible, and he deserves to pay for his crimes, but was he really a monster? I don't think so. I think he was a confused young man who was trying to somehow make sense of his problems and correct them. He did the worst thing imaginable, and probably knew that it wasn't the right thing to do, but hating him won't change what happened.
I don't know, maybe I'm just being hyper-sensitive to his side.
Don't misunderstand me, I'm not a school-shooting sympathizer, especially in this case. I had about a dozen friends and family members on that campus, within a quarter mile of Cole Hall when he opened fire. The second I heard what happened, my heart stopped and I cursed God for doing something like that again, especially in Illinois. In fact, over the 3 hours it took for me to get a hold of all my loved ones, it was like time stopped and I just wanted to kill whoever brought that agony upon us all. I think I'm still in a bit of a shock.
But, really, what I want to say is that anger solves nothing. If the millions of people stopped hating him and poured their energy into reaching out to the people hit the hardest by the tragedy, even just showing their support, this tragedy wouldn't be so difficult a cross to bear in Northern Illinois.
I know this blog was a bit all over the place, but I hope you enjoyed reading it. Feel free to comment or send me a message. Hopefully my next blog (which will more than likely center around this as well) will have a clearer message.
Good night and peace to you all.
Shelby
