I wrote this post on the day of the Uvalde incident.  

Tuesday, 17 January 1989

Stockton, CA
Mid-day at St. Joseph Hospital ER

I had been called to assist a parishioner with pastoral care and counseling at the emergency room at St. Joseph Hospital, as a result of their being injured in an accident. It wasn’t life-threatening, but it was serious and the person needed the support.

It was during my conversation with the parishioner, their spouse, and the attending MD that an alarm went through the ER, the MD excused himself, and I observed a gurney barreling through the hall from the ambulance entrance. The blanket covering a child’s body was entirely red with blood...and it was a white blanket. I heard another MD instruct to “lock and load...more coming...multiple GSWs...” Staff began clearing space and gear. I could hear the managing nurse calling for the blood bank.

The young person on the gurney...and I understood several more...were from Cleveland School. I touched base with my parishioners again, they went home, and after checking in again with the lead MD and the chaplain, I left to make room.

I have a friend who was a classroom teacher at Cleveland on that day. And, although that person eventually completed a doctorate in educational psychology, and now lives on the same island as I, they were never the same after that day.

As for myself, of course it hurt. Being a veteran though, and working with death and grieving just about daily as a minister, I could “handle.” Now, I have to literally scream at the world…

THIS WAS 33 YEARS AGO! WTF HAS TO HAPPEN TO GET YOU TO SEE REALITY?

I wrote the prose in '66, following the Pt. Welcome Incident in 'Nam. Don't ask. If you're really curious, there's lots on the Internet about it, most of it accurate. There is a relationship between the disasters of war, and the disasters of home.

 



 

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