When violence shatters our sense of safety, we have a choice
Let me take you to my hometown of Highland Park, Illinois, on the shore of Lake Michigan, carved out by ravines like old scars, with maples and oaks that turn copper in the fall. You know how there are some parts of the place where you grew up that feel eternal? Like they'll happen exactly the same way forever? That was our 4th of July.
July 4th, 2022, was no different. My high school marching band flowed down the street in uniforms that were a little too big, playing “Yankee Doodle” out of tune. It was music that smelled like summer, if sound can smell like sunscreen and snow cones and cut grass. The marching band was so loud, so joyfully, innocently loud that when the gunfire started, people actually smiled. They thought it was part of the show. They thought it was fireworks.
A mass shooting in my hometown. How do you process the unprocessable? Especially when a seemingly endless stream of pictures and videos of the violence are flooding the internet. I found myself wondering that same thing last July before I came to Stanford. By then, I was working in New York and summer smelled more like hot garbage, but part of myself was back in those ravines, those beautiful scars. I tried to draft an impossible text to my family: “Don't freak out. Active shooter in my office. I'm okay.” Gun violence had touched my life again. Another mass shooting. This time in my office building in Midtown Manhattan.
I became a statistic twice over. But I don’t want to talk about gun violence statistics. You already know those numbers and they're numbing. When violence shatters our sense of safety, we have a choice. We can let fear define us or we can let love rebuild us.
So, how do you process the unprocessable? You don't do it alone. You do it with long hugs and music and candles, with community and gratitude amplified and all the more vibrant in the face of tragedy.
We talk about courage like it's about toughness. Like it's about gritting your teeth in the face of danger. But I learned that courage doesn't always clench its jaw. Sometimes it opens its arms. When everything fell apart, we reached for each other.
As gunfire rained into the intricate stained glass of the pancake house where my little brother's first birthday party was, the people of my hometown ran into the danger to pull others to safety. They opened the doors of their homes to provide refuge for those who were fleeing. The people in my office jumped into action to barricade the doors. Not because they weren't afraid; they were terrified. But because love makes us braver than we are. And here's the thing about love. It doesn't just show up in the moment. Rather, survivors took action. Meals were organized. Vigils were planned. Funds were raised. Families turned their grief into advocacy.
Shortly after the shooting in my hometown, my friends and I found ourselves in the prairie where Lake Michigan meets the tall grass. We went there to mourn, to hide in the wildflowers and disappear into the hum of the cicadas. We barely spoke. We just walked, and then ran, and then suddenly we were full out sprinting through the prairie grass with our arms open wide. And as we ran, uncontrollable belly-deep laughter erupted. We laughed and we ran until joy and grief tangled into something I do not know the name for. It seemed to whisper, “I will not let violence teach me to love less. I will not harden.”
Love, I learned, runs faster than fear.
Dara Drake (2025 cohort) is pursuing a master’s degree in policy, organization, and leadership studies from Stanford Graduate School of Education and a master of public policy from the School of Humanities and Sciences. Dara is passionate about addressing inequities that lie at the intersection of education, technology, and government.
Knight-Hennessy scholars represent a vast array of cultures, perspectives, and experiences. While we as an organization are committed to elevating their voices, the views expressed are those of the scholars, and not necessarily those of KHS.
