OT: ORLANDO

[BIGMAC]

My heart & prayers goes out to all the men and women killed or injured in the night club shooting. This tragic event was carried out by a COWARD who had no love in his heart. A special thanks to all the first responders for their outstanding service.

 

[floridauconn]

Thank you, from an Orlando resident....

 

[DaddyChoc]

horrible

 

[01Neaggrad02]

One of the victims was from Torrington and was in the THS class of 96

 

[reno tony]

 

[EricLA]

So sad. I wasn't "plugged in" until Sunday night and thought it just couldn't be real. Thoughts and prayers to all the family, friends, and loved ones affected in any way. This mass shooting is officially the worst in American history. A sad and terrible title for Orlando...

 

[meyers7]

Some really messed up people out there. Thoughts and prayers for the victims and their families.

 

[Roger G]

I am down here in Florida. It happened on my birthday, just like the OJ killings. So sad.

 

[JavaMan]

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It was 6:30 a.m. on Sunday in San Antonio. Our team was loading the bus, on the way to the airport to return home after an eight-day road trip. I was sitting in the lobby of our hotel when the TV screen caught my eye.

I saw the words mass, shooting and Orlando.

I looked closer.

Pulse.

Maybe I wasn’t reading it right. It was early and I was tired. I focused my eyes and pulled up Twitter.

I couldn’t believe the reports, and I couldn’t look away.

Orlando is where I was born and raised. Pulse, the gay nightclub, is just ten minutes from my mom’s house. Five minutes from where I graduated high school.

When we landed in New York, my mom called.

“Everything is on lockdown, Z,” she said. “Police are everywhere. All the streets around here are crime scenes.”

And then she asked, “Have you heard from your sister?”

I hadn’t. No one had.

My younger sister is gay. She’d been at Pulse the weekend before.

I called her immediately.

One ring. Two. Three.

There’s a lifetime that passes between rings when you’re terrified of what might be coming on the other end of the line.

“Z.”

She answered.

By the grace of God, I thought.

“Are you O.K.?” That’s the only thing I could get out.

And then she told me her story.

My sister had been on her way to Pulse on Saturday night to meet three of her friends, just as she’d also done last Saturday. It was Latin night. It was also Pride month.

Her phone rang while she was driving. It was the shift manager from her job, asking her to cover the 6 a.m. shift.

She said yes, turned around and went home to bed.

Her friends — the three she was going to meet — never made it back home. They were among the 49 killed.

“Are you O.K.? Are you O.K.?” I kept asking. Shock had stolen all my words.

In some ways, it’s an impossible question to answer. She was in shock.

When we hung up, I imagined all the phones, tucked into the victims’ pockets, ringing and buzzing with unanswered calls and texts. I thought about the families, friends and loved ones on the other end of the line, hanging on to the desperate hope that someone would answer.

I was devastated for what could have been. I was devastated for what had been.

My sister was just a young person on her way to express herself freely in a space where she thought she was safe to do so. Just like the victims at Pulse.

It had been the same for me years ago, as a gay person just coming into myself. Only, the Parliament House was my Pulse.

Gay clubs are more than places where people dance and drink. They are sanctuaries. They are communities. Gay clubs are where many go to find themselves or be themselves or commune with others like themselves, away from the judgment of the world outside.

If you’ve never understood a bar as a refuge, then maybe you’ve never felt the fear of showing affection to someone in public.

In a club’s darkness, there’s freedom. With freedom of self comes something like light. Out of light comes love...

MORE

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[Kibitzer]

@JavaMan. I can't bring myself to "like" the tragic story I just read. Just too sad, heart wrenching.

 

[VAUConnFan]

Thanx for posting JavaMan. Shavonte Zellous' very personal response to the horrible tragedy in Orlando delves quite deeply. There but for the grace of God.

 

[Geew1992]

After anxious moments, Zellous' sister safe

I couldn't even imagine.

 

[Orangutan]

 

[DaddyChoc]

Zellous story......... WOW!