Explaining Orlando
The Orlando shooting on Sunday morning really upset me. I had a little talk with LP then about how someone had shot a bunch of people and killed them (he has a sort of understanding of death) and that’s why mommy doesn’t like guns. We’ve been listening to Hamilton a lot lately, so we’ve talked about duels and guns and how they kill people and how I don’t like them.
Today on the way home from daycare, LP saw flags at a bank flying at half-mast. He asked me why the flags were not at the top of the poles. I asked him if he remembered our talk on Sunday about how someone with a gun had killed and hurt a lot of people who were at a party (best I could come up with for gay club without getting into the idea of a dance club). I explained that when someone important or a lot of people die we fly our flags at half-mast as a way to honor them (and tried not to cry while driving). I explained that the person shot all of those people because he was very angry and instead of talking about it to someone, he decided to hurt people (I referenced how LP had thrown a toy at me in anger the other day). He promised me that he would never do that. I mentioned again how I don’t like guns and I don’t like him pretending to use guns. We discussed that water guns and pretend water guns are okay. Then we pretended that the car was a bubble filled with water that we could still talk in.
Then LP asked me why the person was angry. I had to tell him it was because he didn’t like the people at the party. They were people who, like mommy, like their same gender, girls who like girls and boys who like boys (this is what made me start to tear up again). We talked about how mommy likes girls and boys (like him and daddy). Then he asked me if I was at the party. I told him, no that the party was in Florida (he’s done some map of the States puzzles so he has a concept of Florida). He said that was good because he was scared that I was there and was glad that I wasn’t.
Then, in the way of five year olds, he went on to something else.