Today was a scary and sad day in DC. Two of my coworkers had taken me out for ice cream. On the way back to the office we cut through the underground mall and exited out the Marriot. As we were leaving the lobby I noticed the TVs on CNN had on breaking news- "Shooting at the US Holocaust Museum."
"Oh dear God," I half-shouted, knowing that my roommate is an intern there. My two coworkers turned around and joined me in front of the TVs. We stood there in silence for a few moments before leaving and heading back to the office. On the way we saw a Homeland Security police car rush down the street.
When I got back to the office all the TVs were on full volume. They're usually always on CNN but vary from being on mute and full volume. Because of this, I was able to keep fully updated... but I still had no idea how my roommate, R, was. We had been silly and not exchanged information (we have now, though).
Of course, I knew R was not one of the people shot. They said the only individuals shot were the security guard and the shooter, but I still worried about R and how she was handling the crisis. I know I would have been freaking out, even with crisis situation training.
I did not know how R was until about 50 minutes ago, around 8:30 pm. She told me about her experience during the shooting and it was hard to swallow that she had gone through such a horrific experience. I couldn't begin to imagine how she was handling the situation.
But what struck me most was her emotion over the death of the security guard. She had spoken about the security force to C and I on Sunday. She had mentioned a large man whom she compared to a large teddy bear, one of her favorite security guards- the man who died today. It turns out he was the first person she met at the museum. He gave her her first tour and helped her out multiple times with her job. Even talking about his death brought her to tears, and she had only known him for two weeks.
One of the things that will always stay with me is something she said, with great difficulty, near the end of our discussion of today's shooting. "Today a good man died... and the man who should be dead is lying in stable condition in a hospital... Life is not fair."
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