As many of you heard, from all the caring texts I received this morning, there was a shooting in one of the suburbs of Wausau which led to the deaths of at least 4 humans. We were in the middle of it and my hospital was on lockdown; we are all fine and were never in danger thanks to the fine folks of the Marathon counties PDs, task force and WSP. The first thing I must say is, I can’t and won’t talk about the incident further in respect to the families who won’t ever have justice in their grief and the officers who lost one of their own. Having been in public service for so long, no matter what their public persona projects, I know no law officer who wants to take a life and will most often put theirs in front of one to save it. Is he a hero? He was doing his job, his duty, what he was trained to do in something not all of us are capable of doing. So yes. We also need to look at other parts of our collective; a teacher, a mechanic, a farmer, a physician, YOU – all Hero’s. There is something each of us does that other people can’t, often in extraordinary circumstances. We do what we are trained to do, like each of us does every day, and I am glad to be of service.

But the real lesson here is Love and Understanding. Lives were lost because someone didn’t have the tools to deal with their pain and felt violence was the only way out, a sad everyday occurrence these days. I had to stop myself yesterday when I felt anger towards this person, and hoped for his life to end because of the cascade of pain and fear his actions caused. Then I realized he probably wasn’t given the tools to deal with life. I found compassion so I could forgive, we do this for ourselves so we can move forward. Don’t get me wrong, I feel there is true evil in this world. Those that prey on the less fortunate and feel life in any form is not worth more than their own. Conscience is complicated. I call my Generation the sandwich. We experienced the “Me” times of the 80’s and worried about being melted by nukes. So we bore the millennial children who feel deeply within because we learned that “Me” and power isn’t what it’s all about. Eventually the two will meet and we all will be the best “Me” we can be and learn that winning isn’t always winning. We will value and gain the tools to own our shit and understand that our pain and inability to deal is often because of something we have not settled within ourselves. We will care for our fellow human, no matter what race, creed of color and know they are our brothers and sisters in this crazy experiment we call life. That will be a day to remember.

So I ask each of you reading this to reflect and pay respect to the lives lost on our planet on a daily basis, be it thousands of miles away or right next door. If you are struggling, look within before blame, search for understanding, forgive yourself, forgive each other.
Make tomorrow a better place for yourself and others. #beofservice