“It’s like they’ve all moved on
and forgotten about everything
that just happened,”

she told me.

I nodded.

On instagram
she said, kids were now
posting notices about
soccer tryouts and
other such ordinary
things

Instead of posting
the fundraiser for
the funeral of the freshman boy

His name is Sergio

who died
from a drug overdose
After being taken
from the school in an ambulance
on Tuesday morning

while my daughter
sat in her psychology class,
wondering, like everyone else
exactly what was going on

I will never forget his goofy grin
His green soccer jersey
in the picture his cousin posted
to ask for help burying him
He was just a kid

I can’t stop thinking about his family
Who I heard were uninsured
about his friends
four of whom were also close
to overdose that day

About what he might have taken
knowingly or not
I’ve read the stories and
I’ve seen the news

Opioids are everywhere

Opioids are everywhere

Opioids are everywhere

I see that someone who suffers from
“opioid use disorder”
hits different than
“drug addict”
And many kids who OD think
they’re taking an advil for their headache
or percocet for their sports injury
or adderall because they forgot their own
ADHD meds that morning

Then on Thursday,

My girl was in the gym
dressed in sweats for PE
when the announcement came
over the PA about another lockdown
“This is not a drill,” they repeated,
but some of her friends still thought it might be
because drills are so commonplace now
where they make kids hide silently
in dark, locked closets and classrooms
left to pray or wonder or wait

As five minutes became thirty became two hours
they knew it wasn’t a drill

That day the instagram posts
taken through the narrow windows
of classroom doors
were of policemen in tactical gear
with long guns
and shields
moving through the school
in search of the “trespasser” who was there
to retaliate for some other act of violence
or perceived slight
I don’t even know

Kids posted tributes
to the principal too
None of us signed up for this
No one

Another face flashing
in my mind is that of
the boy they arrested

Later

Long after I picked up my daughter
and hugged her and exhaled
and tried not to cry
I took her and her friend through
the drive-thru because they’d been held in the gym
and missed lunch

They were giddy at first
relieved to be free
and alive
all the other feelings
came later

The boy they arrested
had three guns
at his house

The boy they arrested
could have opened fire anywhere
in that school
His intended target
could have been in the gym

It is a miracle that he didn’t shoot anyone

At least not on Thursday
not in my daughter’s school

I think about that boy’s family too

They canceled school on Friday
but ran the buses
so kids could eat breakfast and lunch
or talk to someone

I was thankful for that

I don’t know how you move on either
I told my daughter
even though you have to
you have to keep doing
what’s expected of you
what you need to do to get by
Still
I am paralyzed

Stuck

Because I don’t know what to do

You know me, I am a doer.
I solve problems
I come up with a plan
and then a plan b

But these problems are

Too much

Too wide 

Too deep 

too everything

I can help my daughter
or at least try
I can even help her friends
or at least try
I can listen to my parent friends
I can support the teachers

On Wednesday, between the overdose
and the would-be shooter
I got trained in how to save a life
with Narcan
which I will carry with me now

But getting at the roots
saving all the other children
giving the parents what they need 
getting rid of the guns
I can’t do those things

On my own
I can’t solve those problems 
They are staring us all down
So how to move on?