November 23, 2022, Grapevine– There was no solace, no room to sit and get a few minutes’ rest, after standing at a register, or stocking shelves, or moving boxes from the back room. It was not to be, on that painful Tuesday night, in one of the largest cities in Virginia. It was not so, because a supervisor snapped, and forgot that his mission statement-his “job description”, the words in a manual that were supposed to give direction, no longer mattered-if they ever did.

Forgive me, if I have no sympathy for someone who takes own life, after slaughtering so many others. Murder is a choice-and one of the most heinous of choices, but you knew that. Whatever the person may have meant to others, prior to the bloodbath,has likely changed. All their loved ones’ impressions, memories and good feelings of the wanton killer are relegated to the past.

No, all of my heart goes to the victims in Chesapeake, in Colorado Springs, in Moscow(ID) and in each of the nearly 500 other locations where MASS MURDER has taken place since the Texas Towers, in 1966. Part of the blame can go to those who closed mental health facilities (to save money-never mind the lives lost), to those who fight back against keeping weapons out of the hands of the mentally ill. In the end, though, killing is a choice. A better choice is always talking; a better choice is always pursuing one’s legitimate grievances in a non-lethal manner; a better choice is always looking, under rocks if necessary, for an advocate. None of those other choices dehumanizes or ends the life of another person.

Murder is a choice.