I received a phone call from my mother two nights ago–
“Have you heard what’s happened?” I hadn’t. She told me about the shootings at Virginia Tech, with a sense of urgency in her voice. “Where are you?” she wanted to know. I was home, and she sighed with relief. This made me roll my eyes. What could I possibly do to be more careful? It’s not as if we could stop going out, stop going to school. I remembered how nearly six years ago, after 9/11, my mother got me a dust mask and flashlight from home depot. “So I could…what? Protect myself from the fallout of a nuclear attack in the future?” I sort of laughed at her then, but her concern, then and now, is earnest. It’s the sort of thing that breaks my heart.
