Tradgedy in our own back yard

There were a few minutes Friday afternoon when my world was in a whirl. I was at my sewing machine finishing a project. I had the tv on, and about 4:10 the local news team broke into the programming. My first reaction was arghhhh. They then announced that an "incident had occurred at UAHuntsville. No further details were available. I ran to the phone to call Marlow. He has had some crazy students, and I have commented to him before that I wouldn't be surprised if they went into a classroom shooting.



I was so upset that I couldn't remember Marlow's cell number. After three tries I got it right, and held my breath as the phone rang. I was soooo relieved when he answered, and I blurted out "are you okay?"



He probably thought I was crazy, he had no idea that anything had happened. He got on the campus web site to see if they had any details. We spent the next hour calling back and forth updating each other on new details.



The campus was locked down, and even though Marlow was across campus from the incident, all buildings were secured. I was so grateful that both Josh and Kyle were at work. Jennie called about 4:30, and her first question was where are my brothers?



I don't know where Kyle's classes are, but Josh has two classes in the Shelby building.



We spent a good part of Friday evening answering the phone and reassuring those concerned that we were all okay.



We wanted to get word to Mark that no one was involved. I remember when the Lee High School bus accident happened while Mark was attending Lee High. Even though I knew he wasn't on the bus, I wanted to hug him. I didn't want Mark to hear about the shooting and have to worry about us.



We tried many avenues to contact someone who could get word to Mark. We had met a Brother Davis at Christmas who works with the missionaries. We couldn't find his number, but called his daughter that lives in Madison and got his number. He wasn't home, but Marlow called a second number and talked to one of his daughters. She couldn't find the mission presidents number, but gave us the zone leaders number. They didn't answer their phone. We looked up the number of the family that Mark lives with, they weren't home.



We had exhausted our resources. I was relieved about 30 minutes after our failed attempts to have the phone ring. A sister was calling from Las Vegas, didn't catch her name, but I could tell she was upset. She explained that she was feeding the missionaries (Elder Moser), and was aware of the tradgedy, and wanted to know the status of our family. I let her know we were okay. I was so grateful for her concern, and glad that when she put me on speaker phone I was able to reassure Mark we were all okay. I thought about the hug I was able to give Mark right after the bus accident. I'm sure he needed the reassurance that all was okay.