I have been holding this in since the first tragedy. 

But grief has a way of fermenting when the headlines keep coming. 

First two dead. 

Then three more.

Five children gone in the span of public forgetting. 

And what infuriates me most is this:

None of them had to die.

We call them accidents because the word is softer. 

Accident sounds kinder.

Cleaner. 

Like no one could have seen it coming. 

Some tragedies are called accidents because that saves everyone the inconvenience of blame. 

Take the deaths of the young athletes. 

Children pushed into brutal training regimens under the banner of discipline, excellence, and medals. 

As if suffering were a curriculum requirement. 

Not even professional athletes train under certain extreme conditions without layers of safety protocols. 

Yet children do. 

Because in this country, we gaze at that oversized tin cup as if it were salvation in metal form. 

Win first. 

Hydrate later. 

Survive if possible. 

And then there were the three children and the gun. 

Let us be clear.

This was no freak accident. 

A gun does not leap from a drawer and start firing on its own. 

There was choice. 

Curiosity, yes. 

But also discernment. 

Children know what a gun does. 

At some point, someone pointed it. 

At some point, someone pulled. 

People hate hearing this because we are addicted to innocence. 

But innocence and accountability are not enemies. 

The law may draw its line at fifteen, but reality has been ignoring that line for years. 

A child can be young and still know danger. 

And if a twelve-year-old can understand sex, violence, pregnancy, and social humiliation — because many already do — then why do we suddenly pretend they are blank slates when blood is involved? 

Perhaps our laws have not caught up with our children. 

Or worse, our children have caught up with our violence. 

And then come the institutions. 

Ah yes. 

The institutions. 

Schools, especially. 

Quick to teach values. 

Slower to practice them. 

Fast to issue statements about integrity. 

Faster to call lawyers when their own walls crack. 

Private schools love criticizing public dysfunction. 

Until the dysfunction is theirs. 

Then suddenly it becomes “an internal matter.”

A misunderstanding. 

An isolated incident. 

A delicate situation. 

Amazing how scandal changes vocabulary. 

What they call protection often looks like concealment. 

What they call preserving reputation often looks like burying evidence. 

And the dead, inconveniently, stay dead. 

It fascinates me how institutions believe being private makes them morally exempt. 

As if expensive tuition can bleach away ugly truths. 

As if polished hallways could disinfect the truth. 

As if God grades on branding. 

But hell, as far as history teaches us, has never cared whether your uniform was public or private. 

It has always had a special wing for hypocrisy. 

Especially the kind dressed in white.