Listen

I just filled up my truck with art supplies from my studio. I hauled it in and then I posted on Facebook. If you want to come make art, come make art.

You could see unity within the community. We were all right next to each other. You saw people waving American flags. You’re walking up to complete strangers and just telling them, “Thank you for being here.” People are given each other hugs. You could see people crying all over the place. It was really emotional.   

The phones were ringing constantly. That’s when angels descended. Dispatchers came from other counties, they took days off, they came from other departments in the building to help answer phones.

A bunch of people were asking did I have a family member or a friend at the shooting. I told them it was my mom. Some of them started crying. Some just got out and paid extra. They said, “You’re a good person. Keep up the good work.”

To honor Quinn I need to honor the decision that he made to go get an education. Making a decision to go to school was the right thing for Quinn to do. No mother should ever feel badly about sending their child off for an education. What happened wasn’t because of getting an education or learning.

The wonderful thing that stood out to me in regards to our community was that people who could offer food, could offer candles, could offer whatever, brought what they had. Without any organization, the vigil just started to just come together.   

We worked twelve hour days and weekends most of October. We started at eight in the morning and finished around five or six, and then spent two hours over dinner planning for the next day.

Everything just went very quiet, all the sounds were not the same as restaurant sounds anymore. It was really awkward to be doing food service. It just didn’t feel like a real important thing to be doing, but by late afternoon people were coming in. They just needed somewhere to be.

In the midst of so much awful stuff and trauma and so much sadness. We have also seen the most incredible displays of humanity, of love, of generosity, of people coming together…alongside the very worst. How do we draw on that goodness? How do we use this as an opportunity to say we are and can be better?

There were hundreds of people calling you, not only from across the county, but from around the country. It was overwhelming. It showed how people cared.