When Death Comes

 

When we fail to protect our people, and death comes,

every community should pause with its grief,

society should close its businesses, stop all its normal activities, 

and come together for a day to collectively grieve,

 

to mourn with our hearts, and not just with words,

to acknowledge our failures and mistakes,

to gather the wounded and hurting and console them,

 

to say that what happened was wrong and that what we did wasn't enough,

to take the necessary steps to prevent this from ever happening again,

and resolve that it never will.

 

                        Mark Liebenow