Opinion: Safety has always been a blessing, not a promise

By Vanesa Brashier, publisher of Bluebonnet News

The active shooter incident at Deerbrook Mall in Humble this weekend stirred up emotions for all of us, I’m certain. For me, it also brought back memories I hadn’t thought about for a while.

Like so many of you, I spent much of Saturday evening following the reports. As publisher of Bluebonnet News, I wanted to make sure my readers had accurate information as it became available. As the updates continued to come in, I was not just watching as a journalist. I was watching as a mom and grandmother, and as someone trying to make sense of another act of violence in a place where families should have been making memories instead of running for their lives.

One story has stayed with me. I first learned about the incident from a Facebook friend who shared a video describing how she was at the mall when the shots rang out and had to convince her autistic son to run as people around them fled in panic. He didn’t understand why everyone was suddenly running. She had only seconds to convince him that this wasn’t a game or a misunderstanding. It was a matter of survival. No parent should ever have to experience that.

As I continued following the coverage, I found myself thinking about something much bigger than one shooting. I thought about how much our world has changed and how differently we move through it today than we did when I was a little girl.

There was a time when most of us never gave a second thought to walking into a church, a shopping mall, a movie theater or a school. We simply assumed we’d return home at the end of the day. While tragedies have always happened, the thought of random violence erupting in ordinary places rarely crossed most people’s minds. For some reason, though, it crossed mine.

Even as a little girl, I occasionally found myself staring at the front doors of our family church in Moss Hill, wondering what I would do if someone walked through them intending to hurt people. I have no idea where those thoughts originated. I certainly had watched enough John Wayne and late-night war movies with my dad, and the conversations with him that followed to know the world was a dangerous place, but it always seemed like the danger was far removed from my world. Still, as an overly imaginative child, I saw the possibilities for surprising and horrendous events to unfold, even in my small community.

No one planted the idea in my head, and there had certainly been no reason to think something like that would ever happen.

Most Sundays, though, I wasn’t thinking about anything nearly that serious. I was sitting either by my mom, Dorothy, and my grandma, Stella, in our little country church, doing everything I could to keep myself occupied through the sermon.

Between the two of them, they were experts at keeping me occupied. I am sure it was a challenge having raised three daughters similar to me in personality. In the days before tablets and phones, kids had to use their imagination to keep their minds occupied. I would trace the lines on my mom and grandma’s hands with my finger, comparing every crease and wrinkle to the tiny lines on my own. When I got tired of that, I’d quietly check my mom’s pockets to see if she’d tucked away a peppermint. My grandma usually had a lemon drop hidden somewhere. If I got really restless, I would create a fan out of a church program or one of them would hand me an Emory board, and I’d carefully file their nails and mine.

Every once in a while, while everyone else seemed focused on the sermon, I’d find myself looking toward the front doors of the church. I remember wondering what would happen if someone walked through those doors wanting to hurt us. I don’t know why those thoughts entered my mind because no one talked about such things in those days. This was the 1970s. We didn’t have active shooter drills. Churches didn’t have security teams or surveillance cameras. We simply came to worship, believing everyone else had come for the same reason.

Looking back, I know those fears were incredibly unlikely to become reality. The world really was safer than it is today. Kids played outside without needing a parental chaperone. We wandered the woods behind our house where the biggest dangers were snakes and spiders, not other human beings. Even then, I understood something that I’ve been reminded of again this week. Safety has never been guaranteed. It’s always been a blessing.

Sunday night services gave my imagination even more to work with. The church was air conditioned but there were times when it was not working, so the windows stayed open. The only thing between us and the darkness outside was a screen window. One evening I heard what sounded like a woman screaming somewhere beyond those windows. It scared me to death. I looked at my grandmother, expecting her to jump up or at least look concerned. She listened for a moment, smiled and said, “It’s just a black panther.”

Just? I remember thinking the only thing standing between us and that screaming black panther was a screen window and my grandmother. Somehow, she seemed perfectly convinced that was enough.

Today I laugh at that memory because my grandmother understood something I didn’t. The panther wasn’t about to crash through the screen and stroll into Sunday evening service. She knew we were safe. Even though my fears were misplaced, the lesson wasn’t.

As children, we instinctively recognize that we’re vulnerable. We know there are things beyond our control. Somewhere along the way, adulthood convinces us otherwise. We settle into routines and begin believing that because something has always happened a certain way, it always will. We drive the same roads, sit in the same church pews, visit the same stores and assume tomorrow will look a lot like today.

Most of the time, it does. Then something like Deerbrook Mall reminds us that ordinary isn’t guaranteed.

I’m not writing this to encourage anyone to live in fear. In fact, I believe fear, or at least paralyzing fear, is exactly what we must avoid. If we stop going to church, stop shopping, stop attending ballgames and community events because we’re afraid of what might happen, then we have surrendered something precious. We also hurt the businesses, churches and organizations that count on us to be there. We also lessen our life experiences and those of our families.

At the same time, I don’t think there is anything wrong with acknowledging reality. We should expect the places where we shop to have the right level of security. It seems to have worked on Saturday as the situation was quickly brought under control by law enforcement. Thank you, Humble Police Department and all others who responded.

For me, I now pay more attention to exits when I walk into a building. I pay attention to what is happening around me. Even though we are tempted to keep our heads down and avoid eye contact, we should work against that. We should strive to pay less attention to our cell phones and more to what is going on around us. I am guilty of it just like everyone else, but paying attention might prevent a similar situation from happening in the future. If something doesn’t feel right, trust that feeling. That’s not because we should expect the worst every time we leave home. It’s because wisdom and awareness are part of the gifts God has given us.

Even with all the preparation in the world, there are limits to what any of us can control. We can lock our doors, make plans, carry phones, carry a handgun, learn emergency procedures and do everything right, but none of us can guarantee tomorrow.

Maybe that’s what I sensed all those years ago while sitting between my mom and my grandma. Maybe that’s why those church doors and those screen windows have stayed with me for so long. I didn’t have the words for it then, but I understand it now. Life is precious precisely because it isn’t guaranteed.

Keep going to church. Keep shopping. Keep enjoying dinner with friends, attending community events and living your lives. Most importantly, stay prayed up and ready. Evil has always existed and will continue to exist until God returns for us, but it should not decide how we live.