Author: alisonpaulklak

I remember vividly when 9-11 happened. I— along with my brother and father— watched the second plane fly straight into the stately World Trade Center. We stood in front of my parent’s television in our former home in Washington, North Carolina, mouths agape. Later that evening as news reports and images of a war scene on the streets of New York City unfolded, I remember feeling as scared and helpless as I’d ever felt. I remember thinking that life could not possibly become worse here in the USA. Our pride and freedoms had been assaulted at home… on our soil. So many precious lives lost. Then I became an Army girlfriend then wife, and survived the stressors of my husband’s deployments to Afghanistan. Once, I heard a bomb explode during a phone call he made to me from a firebase in the middle of Afghanistan. The call suddenly disconnected. I became hysterical. I thought, “things could not get worse.” Years later, mass shootings began to happen here in the US regularly. We almost became numb to the monthly, weekly tragedies. I once again thought it could not possibly get worse. Especially, the evening the news broke of young children murdered in a school in Connecticut (Sandy Hook Elementary)— as I held my three-month-old son in my arms. And now, here we are in the year 2020.