7.20.2012

Kelsie McWilliams
Jul 21, 2017 · 2 min read
Street corner memorial for Aurora theater shooting on July 20, 2012. Courtesy of Getty Images.

I had woken up to several frantic texts.

Are you ok? Text me. Call me. Please let me know that you’re safe.

Much to my mother’s chagrin, my phone was on silent, as it usually was. But when I finally did wake up, I checked my phone in a blurry haze and dialed her number as soon as I realized that something horrible happened.

Several news alerts had popped up alongside the text messages on my phone. Multiple conflicting headlines about a shooting in a movie theater. The number of injured or dead varied depending on who had published the story. In one headline, I found a location: Aurora, Colorado. My heart skipped a beat when I read the name of this familiar town.

On July 20th, 2012, I couldn’t help but sit in front of my computer with CNN on the TV in the background. The more details came out, the more I realized that it could’ve been me or any one of the people I saw on a daily basis. As each new detail was released, the reality of what had happened became sharper, more focused. The resonation scared me. The proximity scared me. The age of the shooter scared me.

Oddly enough, on that day, my family and I were meeting up with my friend and her family, who were visiting from out of state to help her move. We planned to grab pizza at a restaurant in Aurora, just a mile away from the theater. So many things had brought me closer to what had transpired there, and my presence in that city on that day did not feel coincidental.

The following day, I couldn’t help but stay away. I drove to Aurora again, compelled to see the ever-growing impromptu memorial. The windblown signs, the burned out candles, the white crosses.

I will never forget that day. I will never forget the silence, how hesitant people were to cry, to talk, to make noise in such a sacred space. I saw so much in what wasn’t said. In hollow expressions, in bloodshot eyes, in a woman’s head resting on her lover’s shoulder.

Five years later, these images have yet to fade, and I am no less heartbroken.

Kelsie McWilliams
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