To All The Parents Who Have Lost A Child To Gun Violence

To all the parents who have lost a child to gun violence:

I will no longer say I’m sorry for what you’ve been through, because sorry is not enough. Sorry won’t make you feel any better. Sorry won’t dry your tears. Sorry won’t bring back your beautiful children.

I was sorry on December 14, 2012, the day of the Newtown tragedy. I have been sorry every since. But not much has changed; in fact, the incidents of mass shootings are becoming more frequent.

I was so sorry that I started a Facebook page called Twenty Six Seeds of Love for Newtown on December 19, 2012. I have been saying sorry to those in Newtown ever since. And though I know that many of the residents of Newtown follow my page and appreciate what I’m trying to do, it just isn’t enough.

Sorry is just a way of trying to make myself feel better. It is a kind thing to say, I guess, but it doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t change what just happened in San Bernardino. It doesn’t change what happened in Roseburg, Aurora, Virginia Tech, or what happens every single day somewhere in our country.

But, I am sorry that we have failed you—as a country, as a people, as human beings. We refuse to see your horrible tragedies for what they are: an inexcusable, preventable injustice. A horrible loss that none of us would like to face. You are living a parent’s worst nightmare. You have joined a club none of us want to be in. You shouldn’t have to stand alone.

While many of us get over the horror of these tragedies and move on with our lives, you can never truly move on. You must deal with the loss of your loved ones on a daily basis. You are serving a sentence, and you never committed a crime.

I can no longer carelessly leave the TV on while my young children are home, for fear they will hear of the next school shooting. I can no longer feel content after I drop them off at school. For your losses are always at the back of my mind.

I no longer care about there being two sides to the gun issue. We should all be on the side of humanity. We should focus on there being one side only—the side of fewer deaths from gun violence.

I care about you and the pain you are going through. I don’t want to see another parent go through that pain. I want to see the killing stop. I want to see the streets filled with laughing children, not blood. And every single one of us should want the same thing.

And every single one of us should do whatever it takes to protect the children, and all of us, from the next shooting. Whatever it takes.

The time is now to stop the divisiveness and put the lives of others first. After all, we are all human. All of us care about our children.

So I will not say sorry for the thousandth time. I will say I wish you any peace you can eventually find. I will say if there is anything I can do to help you, I will. I will say that I wish that all of us will now have the courage and determination to put an end to this misery.

For sorry is just not enough.