I hesitated for a moment when the young woman in the elevator asked me where I had gotten my sandals. In Highland Park, I whispered. At my friends store. The young woman flinched ever so slightly, as the degrees of separation in which we all tend to take comfort suddenly disappeared.
Sandy Hook. Parkland. Uvalde. Countless others, and now, Highland Park. Ordinary towns to many, at one time, but now horrific -- albeit ordinary -- headlines to most. Still, we don't tend to dwell on the names of these places, most days. Just on the days when a new one is added. The woman in the elevator told me she had once been to Lake Forest, but never to Highland Park -- just an inch away. The stain of tragedy seeped toward her now as the mere mention of my having been there breathed life into the unthinkable thing that only happens elsewhere.
For six years, somewhere between packing up my five bedroom house in Deerfield, one town over, and my move back to Chicago, I lived -- and worked, and played -- in Highland Park. It was close enough to my friends in Deerfield, convenient enough for my daughter to finish up high school there, but just far enough away for me to start a new chapter, relatively unencumbered by old wounds. I took to Highland Park, well, like a fly takes to shit. The people, the relatively bustling suburban downtown, the watering hole that became my real-life "Cheers." I lived within spitting distance of the massacre, have walked the now blood-stained sidewalks countless times.
When I finally packed up and left for Chicago, I did so with some trepidation, but not nearly as much as that of my friends. Will you be careful? The city is dangerous. The concern worsened over the past few years, with good reason, after violence littered my neighborhood with boarded up windows and the steady drumbeat of shootings seemed to rise. Lately, I've rolled my eyes at the concern, musing out loud about how no place is safe, nobody is safe. Still, when I visited Highland Park just two days before "it" happened, I considered moving back to the idyllic embrace of its leafy and quiet streets.
Highland Park, my town, has become a headline. Just like Sandy Hook, Parkland, Uvalde, and countless others. I have left, but I return often, and it is still my town. I am geographically removed, but a piece of my heart remains, now heavy and broken. I held my breath as they released the names of the dead, relieved that I did not know any of them but devastated beyond words. I have read and listened to stories shared by people I do know, who were right there, having escaped the carnage but for the grace of who knows what. My obstetrician, the good-natured doctor who delivered my third child, is now a household name, a hero of sorts. There are too few degrees of separation this time, and my already overwhelming sense of anger and despair has reached new heights.
The people of Highland Park, like the people in all those other towns, will survive. But how many others will suffer, or die, in the meantime?
