Shooting In Kalamazoo

Waiting in the the waiting room of the doctors office felt like an eternity after they ran tests on my brother. While waiting there my brothers and I were just playing games on my mom’s phone while she sat nervously. She had a look on her face that I have not seen many times before. At the time, I had a general idea of what diabetes was but never thought about how serious, time-consuming, and life changing it is. The only thing that was on my mind at the time was how much homework I had that night.

Once we had food in our tummies, we headed over to take our seats. We sat at the top of the bleachers you could see everything. The Bulls in their cages, the horses in their trailers,

A couple years ago,( my freshman year), my family received a very terrifying phone call from the police station. That early sunday morning my sister was in a death car accident.

An ambulance came and carried out my mom. I didn’t know what was going on, so many questions running through my mind, what was wrong with her, was she going to be ok. I was scared, more scared then I had ever been. My sister Sheridan who was 8 asked me “what’s happening?” through tears. On that day a little piece of me began to change because if I let her see my fear that would not help anyone, and so even though I didn’t know what was happening I responded “everything is going to be ok” even though I did not trust my own words.

Officers prepare the community of Dublin for an active shooter. These trainings are held once a year, however, more dates may be adde. The trainings offer different ideas to stay such as run hide, and fight are just some of the techniques taught during a training.

I got the call. My father told me the news. It is insane how many things are taken for granted. We make plans for the day, and don't think about how those plans could possibly be taken in the blink of an eye. I never thought much about it myself, until being faced with undeniable truth. I honestly don’t believe people think about tragedy until faced with shocking news.

One of the most remarkable stories is the one of John Norman. He was a deputy chief of the New York City fire department. He was asleep whenever the first tower of the World Trade Center was hit. He had turned off the ringer on his phone because he was on vacation from work. His plan that day was to sleep in. He was completely unaware of what was going on outside. Then his answering machine got an "all call" message from the department. Still he didn't know what fully was going on so he turned on the television. He said, “As I’m just about to turn off the TV and head for the door, the south tower collapses. I thought it was a bomb." It took him and hour and a half just to get to the city and where he needed to be. He was put in shock whenever

On a beautiful, hot day in August 2011, my grandfather, father, mother, brother, sister, and I all began our day of work. Natalie and I had been in argument over who got to sit in the "good" chair in the rusty corn building next to the grain bins. As I got angrier, I began to walk out the window-pane door suddenly my eyes filled with tears. I looked down and saw the gushing blood but I did not feel any pain. After I saw the blood I let out a

The next stories that I heard a lot about were war stories from my grandpa; these particular stories made me realize just how lucky I am and how good I really have it. Although he did not like to tell these stories, my aunt would badger him until he would. Once he got started though you could tell he enjoyed passing on the experiences that he has had. These stories made me realize that life is never predictable; he was my age when he was in Germany to fight for our country, and I’m sure he never planned on something like that happening to him just as I never could either. I could not even imagine carrying out the missions he was assigned, but it was still interesting to hear about all he has gone through.

I woke up to the sound of my alarm at 6:30 that morning. The normal dread of waking up, the frantic scatter to get out the door, and the relief of getting in the car knowing you weren't going to be late. It wasn't until fourth period until everything went wrong. I was in my theater class, it was the class I looked forward to the most every day. We were in the middle of reading scripts when an announcement came on the speaker, the class becomes silent waiting for the sound of our school counselor to say what she needed to. It wasn't quite like every other announcement, the voice coming from the speaker was shaky, the voice sounded almost frightened. I was more focused on the sound of her voice to comprehend the words that were being said.

My mother gently hushed us into submission. It didn't take much as we knew, before we were even told, that something was very wrong. My mother and father wistpered in the kitchen, neighbors tapped gently on the door to deliver news, and no one smiled for days.

I stared at my dad's name on the screen and felt too heavy to answer. He had been tasked with being the one to break the news to me again, as he had previously done only a couple of months before when he called to tell me that his dad, my grandfather had died. But, now this was for a family friend who had been present in my life consistently since I was still in elementary school. My dad's voice was flat and the conversation felt awkward as I stumbled over

It was a bone chilling January night; my mom received a call at about 11:15 PM, a call that changed my life forever. My Aunt June was on the other line. She was crying so hard my mother could barely understand her. Through the sobbing my mom finally understood that Brian, my cousin, had been in a horrible accident and she didn’t know how bad it was. My mother jumped out of the bed after she hung up the phone. She screamed up the stairs at my sister and me; it was a nerve shrilling scream. I could hear fear in her voice. My mom was always yelling at us growing up if we forgot to do something. She would even get us out of bed to finish something that wasn’t done completely. This particular

As a teenager in my last year of high school, I had to learn how to cope with the loss of my older cousin. I would never have thought that a family member’s death would be the most difficult thing to cope with since I have never experienced this before until now. Before the worst thing that could ever happen in my life happened, I was having the best night of my life. Well, at least I thought I was.

During the beginning of my second year of college, I sat in English class listening to discussions on an article we had read for homework. In the article there was a passage concerning arguments that the author’s parents would get into and about how the author only ever knew to face the violence was with silence. After discussing the passage, my professor opened the floor up to anyone who wanted to share their experience of growing up in a home with violence and arguments. In the moment I felt my heart racing. I wanted to speak. I had never opened up to anyone about it. I sat there for what felt like an eternity summoning the courage to raise my hand, but I just couldn’t get my arm up. A couple more seconds passed where no one spoke and we moved on. Silence.