A Grandfather Is Supposed to Love Them. What the Fuck Is This?

Some stories leave you staring at the screen, trying to find words strong enough for what you have just read. This is one of them. A pregnant woman, her young children and other loved ones killed in a mass shooting in Erie, Pennsylvania. Relatives said the gunman as the children’s grandfather — the pregnant woman’s own father. Police are still investigating the fucked up motive.

A grandfather. Someone whose place in a kid's life should be associated with affection, safety and perhaps a sneaky treat when Mum isn’t looking. Someone who should be there to watch them grow. The betrayal in this is fucking staggering. How do you even begin to comprehend a family relationship ending in this much cruelty?

Among those killed were Angelina Stone and her children, Isiah and Amari’anna. Angelina was reportedly just days away from giving birth. Those names deserve our attention. The woman who should have had a future. The children who should have had years of birthdays, friendships, silly arguments and ordinary days ahead of them. Their lives mattered before a headline made strangers aware of them.

I am pissed off at the brutality of it. Staggered that children can have their entire futures taken by an adult with a gun. Furious at the suffering left for everyone who loved them. 

Investigators need to establish what happened and why. But whatever they discover, the victims must remain at the centre of this story. Understanding a killer should never swallow up the people he killed.

And spare me any suggestion that being someone’s father or grandfather gives you ownership of their life. Family is a responsibility. It means caring for people and keeping them safe. It gives you absolutely no fucking right to decide whether they get to live.

As a grandmother, I find the thought of those children unbearable. You want your grandchildren to feel safe with you. You want to hear their nonsensical chatter, see what interests them this week and watch the people they are becoming. 

The privilege is getting to be part of their lives. Not the person who ends them.

The surviving loved ones now have to face something the rest of us can barely bring ourselves to imagine. Long after the headlines disappear, they will still be living with the absence. There will be birthdays to get through, belongings to confront and moments when the enormity of what happened hits all over again.

They deserve support that lasts longer than a news cycle. They deserve room to grieve, to rage and to remember their loved ones as whole people.

And I will not apologise for swearing about the killing of a pregnant woman and little children. If the word “fuck” offends you more than the violence that prompted it, your priorities need a bloody good examination.

My sympathy is with the victims and everyone who loved them. My hate is for the man who took their lives.

What a cruel, devastating fucking waste.