It is a hard day to be a citizen of the US.
I wonder if this is what it is like to feel like the family member of a mass shooter.
To love the country that is the root of so much harm.
and to feel the burden of a kind of responsibility in this connection.
But,
I could not stop this,
It was always bigger than me.

I feel my smallness now.
I know it will not serve me to stay small forever.
But,
I am old.
I don’t have the stamina of my 20-year-old-self.
And I am afraid,
for myself and my future,
for my darker skinned family,
for this amazing, beautiful planet
and all its innocent creatures who
will  surely suffer the consequences of this outcome
as it always has.
But this…
I cannot yet entirely wrap my head around this.
How have we consented to this?

But wrap my head around it I must.
This, this first step.
To grieve, to howl,
and then, to accept the reality of what is.

I want to apologize to the world.
To the rivers and the trees.
and the animals,
to all the others who will suffer from this,
It was not my choice and yet…
The Hoʻoponopono plays over in my head:

I’m sorry.
Please forgive me.
Thank you.
I love you.