“Mommy, why are the flags halfway down?”
My little boys pointed to their school flagpole.
I wasn’t sure how much to share with them, but I wanted to be honest and let them hear it from me, and not a more scary or detailed version from a classmate. In very simple, brief terms I explained that a bad guy had done something horrible and killed people in Las Vegas over the weekend. The flags were lowered to half-staff in loving memory of those who had lost their lives and to show respect for their grieving loved ones.
My first-grader's eyes widened. “Las Vegas? Where you were?”
“Yes,” I said gravely.
“I’m so glad you weren’t killed.”
I tried hard to keep my composure, though I felt like grabbing him in my arms and bawling.
“Yeah, I’m glad you and Dad didn’t die,” my third-grader agreed.
My heart literally felt weak as I nodded and mumbled, “me, too,” as we turned and walked into the school.
Instantly, my mind flashed back to when I first heard the news.
I woke up Monday morning to the sound of my phone buzzing. Groggily, I looked at the news alert that stated there had been a mass shooting in Las Vegas.
Instantly, I was wide awake. I clicked on the story and read in horror about the terrible attack at the Jason Aldean concert from the Mandalay Bay hotel. My stomach felt sick and my heart like it could pound out of my chest as I remembered being there just a few days before the shooting on a vacation with my husband and three other couples. We went to Michael Jackson’s “One” at that exact hotel. We walked the strip. We were there at the same time the killer had checked into the hotel, earlier in the week.
Quickly, I sent out a text to my friends who were with me in Vegas, asking if they’d heard the news. None of us could believe it.
My husband walked over to my side of the bed to give me a kiss goodbye and held me as I cried.
“I don’t even want to get out of bed today,” I said, just as a chorus of hungry little tummies growled all around me. Like every other person in America, the question, “Why does this keep happening?” came into my mind. I looked at my four boys in their matching pajamas, watching a show on the Disney channel, oblivious to the disgusting act that had just taken place in our country and suddenly the weight and responsibility of raising them in a world where such evil exists felt like too much.
My husband and I said a prayer, and I got out of bed because what else could I do? I distractedly made breakfast and got the kids off to school. The question, “What can I do?” kept running through my mind. I wanted to somehow wrap my arms around everyone who had been affected by this terrible tragedy. I was praying for Vegas, but I wanted to do something more.
For the last several weeks, Martina McBride’s song “Anyway” has been in my mind. As the lyrics played through my head that morning, they hit me with a powerful force and suddenly I knew what I wanted to do, how I could serve in my way: I could sing.
Music is sometimes the only thing that can heal me when I feel beyond repair. I believe music can soften and strengthen, bring comfort and love, and uplift and carry those with heart-heavy burdens, all while allowing those to grieve and weep and work through what it is they need to work through. Music can change lives.
“I have an idea for a song we could do together,” I said on my friend Alex Boyé’s answering machine.
I read some of the words to the song “Anyway:”
You can spend your whole life building
Something from nothing
One storm can come and blow it all away
Build it anyway
This world’s gone crazy
And it’s hard to believe
That tomorrow can be better than today
Believe it anyway
Five minutes later Boyé called me back. “We have to do that song,” he said. “Let’s do it today.”
Five hours later, we met in a small studio with two ridiculously talented musicians and a videographer. We sat on stools, talked about never losing hope and sang.
I don’t ever want my boys to be afraid to live their lives because they are afraid of dying young. "Live it anyway."
Someone you love may choose not to love you back. "Love them anyway."
When you serve someone, they might not appreciate it. Serve them anyway.
Trying to believe there is still light in an ever-darkening world almost seems impossible. "Believe it anyway."
I cannot imagine what the people who were caught in the shooting went through, or will go through, for the rest of their lives. It is just unfathomable. I will continue to pray for those in Las Vegas, Puerto Rico, Florida, Texas and for all Americans who are suffering from natural or forced calamity. I know my prayers might not be answered in the way I want them to be.
But I will pray anyway.