And How Life Goes On...
2004-09-11, 7:15 p.m.

There I was, reading my issue of Southern Living, and it was in front of me in full color. An article about Oakland Elementary School and its kid-friendly gardens, lovingly tended by an adult volunteer. There was even a photo of the lady surrounded by happy children with the fruits of their labors.

Most of you are saying, �Oakland Elementary? What�s special about that?� If I were to replace the name of the school with �Columbine�, you might think differently.

When I was in college, in the same town as Oakland Elementary, there was a shooting. A mentally ill young man, released against his wishes because his insurance company would no longer pay for his hospitalization, entered the school and began firing. Adults I knew were shot and survived. Children I did not know were shot and killed. It was surreal that day, sitting in a college classroom in a teacher training course, hearing the news and discovering that no one, no where, no time, is perfectly safe. The job of a teacher took on new meaning that day�not just to educate, but to protect and serve in the name of love, love of the children, love of humanity.

So, well over a decade later, Oakland Elementary is once again in the public eye, and nowhere is there mention of the tragedy. Certainly somewhere in the school is a plaque to the little ones who were injured or died that day, maybe some trees planted out front. Somewhere are the survivors, many bearing permanent physical scars. But the most striking memorial to them is this article and the absence of note of what happened that day. There is no postscript, no asterisk urging readers to *insert pity here*. Life goes on in that school, with new precautions of course, but otherwise free from the shadow of doubt and fear. And that�s probably the biggest tribute of all.

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