Tragedy After Tragedy in My Hometown

This is my hometown. I live in Thousand Oaks, CA.

Our beautiful, tight-knit community, consistently rated one of the top safest cities in America, experienced heartbreaking loss and extreme devastation this past  week. We are in mourning.

I’ll start at the beginning:

Last Thursday, my husband Alex and I woke to a text from our niece, who’s  deployed in South Korea. I’m thinking of you today, sorry to hear the sad news in Thousand Oaks.

“What?” I said. “What sad news is she talking about?”

Alex checked his phone and we could not believe it.

A mass shooting. HERE. In Thousand Oaks. Last night at Borderline.

Our oldest daughter, Mackenzie, is 26. Our youngest, Talee, is 23. They’ve been to the  Borderline Bar & Grill numerous times. It’s a super popular place for college-aged kids and country music.

Wednesday was “college night,” for those 18 and over. I shuddered when…