Remembering the hour that, 3 years ago, I was powering down my computer to go to sleep but heard sirens blaring from the fire station next to my subdivision. They were headed to #Borderline where 12 innocent members of the community had been slaughtered.
I barely slept that night as it was quickly apparent that neighbors and lifelong friends were impacted. A dear friend lost her childrens' babysitter and youth leader, Noel Sparks, she'd hugged just hours earlier.
I recalled the evenings and birthdays I'd spent at Borderline, picturing the interior of the bar and imagining how people would try to escape the carnage quickly.
I remember that at first I wondered if any of my close friends were there that night since so many of us went to Borderline to blow off steam and dance. Thurs was our usual night though. I was relieved when I realized it was Wed night (the election was Tues so my brain was fried)
...and then I felt like a jerk when I was relieved that it wasn't the night my friends normally went to Borderline. I saw that my colleague @DavidSpady's son was shot at but got away, and suddenly my heart and my stomach were both in my throat.
Spady's kids were about the same age as my oldest two. I barely functioned the next day; with every update, people I loved were devastated. The next evening I attended the memorial with a friend I'd known since 1st grade, and as we returned home a massive fire was entering town.
Along with thousands of others, I was displaced for four days as the Woolsey Fire raged (and as its rained radioactive chemicals from a nuclear meltdown that happened nearby in the 1950's - yes, really, all of that at once)
I couldn't write more than a quick news hit for six months. It got so bad that @streiffredstate at one point said, "Are you coming back?" I was ashamed and didn't know what to say. I was a writer who survived on clicks...
...and since I couldn't write - because the act of writing would force me to feel emotions I couldn't allow myself to feel - I'd been forced to drive for Uber and Lyft to get by. As a part of healing, I wrote this 6 mos after the shooting: redstate.com/jenvanlaar/201…
But the people whose grief haunted me then - and haunts me still - are people like my friend Chanda. Noel Sparks was her daughters' babysitter, and Chanda was asked to step up and sing Noel's part in the Nativity that year, just 6 wks after Noel died...
...and Chanda stepped up, for her daughters. So they'd see that evil didn't win. People like Ron Helus' widow, who has to live with the terrible knowledge that her husband ended up dying in the very building in which he proposed to her. abc7news.com/sgt-ron-helus-…
Out of this, I don't want our community remembered for the horrific things that happened that night. I want our community remembered for the way we came together and supported those who were grieving and how we still support them. We are #TOStrong, #VenturaCountyStrong.
My breaking news post that night, when I was still in shock: redstate.com/jenvanlaar/201…
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