I thought if I would give it a little time I could process what happened yesterday a little better. Twenty four hours later I have come to the conclusion that there is no processing it. After all, it’s been twenty years and two months since the last time something like this hit so close to home. Time does not heal. It just smooths off the rough edges so it doesn’t cut as deep.

The shooting that took place twenty miles from here Tuesday morning carried me and a lot more people who lived in this area back to where we were twenty years ago. All the way back to square one. The smoothed edges became rough once more and our raw emotions that were sleeping awoke.

Like shingles on a roof that overlap, one over another, the layers of time were peeled off and that old pain resurfaced. One of our own turned against his classmates and unbelievable hurt poured out.

Do me a favor and say a prayer for all those children who experienced the unfathomable yesterday. They will never, ever be the same again. Nor will their families and close friends. Trust me, I know from experience. The event that happened to them yesterday will haunt them the rest of their days.

I could go on and speculate all the what ifs. But after two decades I’ve come to learn that does absolutely no good. What lies in the hearts of people eventually rises to the surface. Oftentimes it makes no sense at all. That’s what happened yesterday. And yes, it will happen again somewhere, sometime in the future.

My prayer is for people everywhere to ask God to instill in them a pure heart. And may the people of Marshall, and the surrounding counties experience that peace that surpasses all understanding.

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Rick Algood
January 24, 2018