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“Come near me, and I will blow his face off.”

My dad, who had been a man of combat for many years, remained calm. Or at least he looked relaxed. Inside, he must have been terrified. He slowly moved toward Jack.

“Jack put the gun down. We don’t want any violence or anyone to get hurt. You have stated your piece. Now let us celebrate our children’s graduation. Come on, Jack. Look at your daughter, Susan. Do you think she wants to see you shoot me? Is that how you want your daughter to remember you on her graduation day?”

Jack looked at me and then slowly started to look at his daughter. As soon as his eyes turned away to look at his daughter, my dad lunged for him, knocking Jack over. However, Jack still had a gun. He fired a few wild shots that luckily did not hit anyone. He then started to point it at my father again.

Suddenly there was a loud pop, and Jack fell over backward, dropping the gun.  The security guard had shot him through the head, killing him instantly. People gasped and started running. The graduates left the stage. Susan was in tears. People were trying to console Susan and her mom, Barbara.

My father and others waited to give their testimonies to the police.

I went home, with mom, Robert, and Sophia. We were all shaken up about what happened. We talked awhile, and then went to bed.

My dad did not arrive home for several hours and immediately went to bed.

I was in for another sleepless night. How could Jack do this? I finally fell asleep looking at my poster of Edgar Mitchell.

Chapter 16 – A Day of Consoling

Sam Burns, Glenwood Springs, CO

Turns out we were all a bit sleep-deprived for the next few days. We were perplexed at how Susan’s father had been willing to resort to violence to get his point across. Why would he choose to threaten my father and not consider the consequences? I couldn’t even imagine, and to think he’d been sitting there armed listening to my father inspire us frankly surprised me and probably a few other.

But I couldn’t fathom what Susan was feeling. My dad stood up there and finally shared what he’d wanted to be our graduation, my graduation present, and her dad, well… It was terrifying to consider that Susan would always remember her graduation and how her father reacted to the thought of reinvigorating the need to build on the spirit of innovation. He paid with his life, and now, it became clear to me that there might be more apprehensions that turn violent in some people’s estimations of the future and how people reacted to the increased environmental threats.

Every known effort to get people to stop living with such utter disregard and entitlements and to change behaviors had found that few people accept change as a constant in human existence, meaning they had to move beyond and open to the possibilities. I felt betrayed at some level by humankind if one of our own could feel compelled to kill someone for disagreeing with how to secure humanity’s future interests. Maybe, it was possible for the Earth to rebound still. Of course, there was always hope. But what sort of hope turned the idea of staying and making the world great again into a dismal start for his bright daughter when she’d have to realize fathers don’t act like that if they care about Earth and the people on it? It bothered me so much and continued to, but I wasn’t able to grasp or sort it out.

When we went to the funeral for Jack a few days later, it was very depressing. It was a rainy day. Just about everyone who had attended the graduation ceremony participated in the funeral. Each of us had our umbrellas out or shared one with a friend or family member. I stood underneath Sally’s umbrella with my arm around her. Our pastor reminded us that we can never know what God’s plan is and there is no way to predict the future. Nothing can live forever. It was very emotional seeing Jack laid to rest. I looked around and saw many people crying and trying to compose themselves. Despite his disruption of graduation, we all thought of him as part of our family.

I looked at Susan and her mom. They were both crying and being consoled by their family and adult friends. Eventually, the funeral finished up, and people started to leave to get out of their wet clothes.

We then all went to Jack’s house to console Susan and her mom. There was a ton of food served. All of the neighbors had donated food that could probably last for weeks. Some people ate a full plate, but I was not hungry. People were sitting around reminiscing about what a nice person Jack was and how they would never have believed he would do something like this. My mother and father joined a group of parents in the living room and watched Susan’s mom cry and try to be kind to everyone. She was thanking each person for coming over to console them.

Sally, Tom and I went upstairs with Susan, Jose, and a few other classmates. I was sad about the way Jack had died, but I was more concerned about Susan. How long would it take to put this tragedy behind her? She was so young to lose her father. I wondered how she would be able to cope. In a short time, she would be leaving Earth with everyone else. I stood up and walked over to her.

“Susan, I am so sorry about your dad. If there is anything you want me, Sally or Jose to do for you, please let us know.”

Susan looked at me and said, “Thank you, Sam.” Then, she started to cry and put her arms around me. She was hugging me really tight.

I looked at Sally to make sure she was not jealous. It did not appear so, but who knew in situations as emotional as this. I’d never lost a friend to death, let alone a friend’s parent, and the only person in my family who had died was my grandfather. That had been really hard on my dad.

After a minute or two, she let go. “I am sure we will see each other soon. I need to help my mom go through Dad’s things for the next few days. I will call you.”

I got up and motioned for Sally and Jose to come with me. I did not want to be in a place that was so sad, seeing everyone looking so depressed. On my way out, I realized I was furious. At that moment I was angry about a lot of things. How could this happen? Why did we all have to see Jack die? Why did Donald Trump have to be such a lousy president when it came to the environment, causing thousands of people to die and ensuring even his own Florida property would be underwater soon? People were dying all over the planet at an alarming rate. I was glad I did not know them. It was awful just thinking about all the deaths.

Sally asked me where we should go.

I said, “Let’s go to my house and hang out. I need to get away from this.”

The three of us left while my parents stayed and consoled Susan’s mom. Graduation seemed like it happened fifty years ago. Life was sure changing fast. My dad’s dream wasn’t to blame—that I was sure of—but I wanted so badly to come up with a way to mend everyone’s broken hearts. I had known he was working on some secret rocket project but nothing of this magnitude. All I could think of was how helpless the scientist Louis Pasteur had been watching thousands suffer and perish needlessly from unsterile conditions that increased mortality rates while the unchallenged wealthy Free Thinkers were allowed to sow doubt about the need to embrace sterilization in operating rooms. It was when Pasteur could eliminate microbes that harm the body that we saved lives.

Jack hadn’t wanted to save lives; he’d gotten lost in becoming part of the disease. How could he have poisoned our minds so quickly and broken our hearts? My poor dad hadn’t condemned everyone on Earth to death. Jack had secured his own death and had shown his illness, an illness maybe that was as infectious as what Pasteur had faced. Again, to me, it felt like only science can provide the answers, although the will to spread his disease turned Jack into a symbol of the post-Truth era we have been living in. But how do we wash our hands of it and be free of this disease of the mind? Just like heat eliminates the danger associated with eating raw foods, maybe we might be able to warm our hearts to eliminate the danger of raw irrational murderers. Maybe.