how much can a heart take…

The massacre in Las Vegas at the end of the Route 91 Harvest music festival fills me anger and sorrow, rage and despair. I went to bed on Sunday night knowing something had happened and woke up on Monday morning to utter heartbreak and death.

As far as I know, my country music loving concert friends are all safe and sound, as well as family and friends who live in the area. Even though I have no direct personal stake in the devastation, it still numbs me. I have had friends go to that music festival. I have gone to such music festivals. Those people share the same love for country music that I have. They sang along, they drank their beer, they enjoyed the music together. All they wanted was to share the joy and magic of music, to savor the moment of singing the same songs with family, friends, and strangers. Except they weren’t really strangers, were they? They were all there for the same thing and that made them family in the heart.

The thought that someone took away their joy, their hearts, their LIVES just makes me cry. These people are MY people. Their joys were my joys. Their hearts, my heart. Their lives, my life. Before the hard, cruel shots that rang, they were living my dream that night. Before the pain and the blood and the tears, they were one with the music. Before the loss, the death, the desperation– they were innocent, one of the last ways an adult can be innocent. Music strips away the darkness, takes the soul to another place, reminds us of moments even as it creates new ones.

How dare someone rip through the night and take those lives, fill those people, OUR people with panic and confusion and fear. And then that cowardly terrorist took his own life in the end? If there is a hell, I hope he’s burning in it over and over and over…

My first thought was– is anyone I know there?! I checked my social media, my snapchats, my instagram stories. No, no one I knew personally had been there. They were all safe. My next thought– did I know anyone who knew anyone who was there? This question is one I still don’t know today. The lost souls have not yet all been named but I have read some of the stories about them and they’ve crushed me so much. The losses are painful but the stories of people helping others fill me with hope too. I cling to that hope.

Reading the reactions on social media has been interesting in some regards. Many have taken to the #PrayforLasVegas hashtag along with words if they could muster it. As I am not the praying type, I posted an informational image to my Instagram and twitter. I wanted to feel as though I was doing something even if it was just passing along information.

One thing that put a bee in my bonnet (yes, I used that phrase on twitter because sometimes I’m just old like that) is a post I happened to read Sunday night. Information was scarce and inaccurate but one “artist” posted something that puzzled me. I wish I had screenshot it but it was somewhere along the lines of “I’m tire of being polite. We need to do something about this now.” He had been in the service before his singing career and made the assumption that the terrorist was foreign born. He didn’t exactly say it in so many words but he insinuated it with his tone. In the morning, after going through some of the news, I saw another post from him that called for prayers. Curious, I checked out his profile and saw that he had deleted his other post. Part of me wondered if I had dreamed it but then I went to his twitter and saw that though he had deleted a post, he had left the replies to a person who had replied to original post that confirmed what I had remembered– he had jumped to inaccurate conclusions then backtracked to the whole “we need to come together, prayers for the victims” line when the terrorist was identified as a white American male. It was so blatant and would have probably gone unnoticed. But I noticed and it rankled me. It still rankles me. People have privately asked me who the “artist” is and I have named him. I won’t name him here. I only want to say this– before you get all up in arms during a tragedy, unless you’re IN IT, wait until the facts come your way. Don’t assume anything. Don’t believe everything you might hear or read. Too many of the news outlets out there are selling ad time and they’ll throw up theories and conjectures left and right. If you have any kind of influence (ya know, the blue check mark), it’s probably best and responsible to just be sure you have all the facts before you post inflammatory words that do NOTHING but feed the fire of panic and fear. Don’t be part of the problem…

I’ve since unfollowed that particular “artist”. I now know the soul of him and it does not sit well with me. I follow enough real, genuine souls out there in the country music world so even if he wrote a song with one of my favorites, it doesn’t mean he’s worth my time. But hey, he makes a good story about the hypocrisy of some people, eh?

My love to all of you. My tears and hope to the ones who endured Sunday night. If I prayed, I would pray. My heart to yours. Let’s spread love and joy and hope by living, laughing, and loving…