Editor’s Note: June 12 marks the anniversary of the 2016 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. Forty-nine people died and 53 were wounded when a lone gunman attacked patrons of the gay nightclub. It was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history at the time (it’s since been eclipsed). This article originally ran just two days later.

I woke up Sunday morning blissfully unaware. It was a rare opportunity to sleep in, not having to get up and hustle into action. When I did roust myself, I leaned over, kissed my husband good morning, and shuffled into the kitchen to pour my morning cup of coffee. And, of course, I checked my phone.

The first thing I saw: a text from a good friend of mine.

“When I saw the news this morning, I immediately thought of you and Chris, and wanted to express my sadness and outrage that even in the most powerful country in the world, we are so flawed, so full of hatred and fear,” it said.

She went on to let me know that she loves me and my family, and was thinking of us.

I didn’t know what prompted her message.

A quick web search revealed facts about the mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando. Forty-nine people gunned down on a Saturday night. During Gay Pride Month.

And, once again, I had to decide how to discuss evil with my daughter.

Nightclub shooting our latest tough conversation

It’s not the first time. She’s almost 15. Like so many other parents, I’ve been having conversations with her since she was a toddler, with horrifying regularity. Sandy Hook. Virginia Tech. San Bernardino.

When she was little, I consulted books about how to talk about death and violence with children. Do you avoid the topic, and shield them from it altogether? Should you mask real-life tragedies in analogies or fables? Or, should you stay honest, but use gentle language that minimizes the brutality?

Now that she’s a teenager, we talk about this stuff with more directness and clarity. Real-life violence has yet to touch her life directly, which is a blessing. So we did talk about the Pulse nightclub shooting, and I decided to go with accuracy and less emotion (which is always difficult for me, as someone whose emotions tend to be the boss in my head): Who the shooter was, what he did, what was known/not known about him at the time.

We had our talk, and it was briefer than conversations in the past. She hadn’t seen the news yet so I just filled her in on the latest Horrible Thing that had happened, and that was that.

Her reaction was difficult to read. Whether that’s because we were used to these talks by now, or because she’s at the stage where she’d rather process stuff on her own, it’s hard to say. I did realize, though, that this tragedy in Orlando felt different from other mass shootings for me, and possibly for her as well. Why?

Because the Orlando shooting was the deadliest in American history.

A horrifying loss of human life.

Fueled, in part, by a hatred of gay people.

And, because, I am gay.

How can she not worry?

I have been out for five years, and this is the first time such a violent act has ripped into this community I proudly call my own.

My daughter tends to be a worrier. She’s gotten a handle on it over the years, but she has the double whammy of having a very active imagination and a short anxiety fuse. So when my husband and I go out at night and she stays home, she still gets a bit nervous if I don’t text her to check in at least once. (Total role reversal. In another year or so, I’ll be the one asking her to check in.)

It’s not my teenage daughter’s job to worry about me. It’s supposed to be the other way around. That’s the way the universe is supposed to work.

And while our evenings out are usually pretty benign, my girl knows that every once in a while, we do love to go out dancing. Dancing is deeply important to us. It’s how we find our feelings, connect with the world, and thank the universe for everything that we have. We plan to keep on going out and dancing until we’re in wheelchairs. And hopefully, by then, science will have developed the technology to make robot legs and neural Groove implants so we can not only keep dancing but look even cooler than the young whippersnappers around us.

My daughter, the worrier, sees the news from Orlando about the Pulse nightclub shooting as such: people in a gay club — people there because they love their community, love each other and love dancing — being heartlessly killed. The gears in my girl’s brain turn, and she makes the connection.

Someday her dad and stepdad could be in a club, dancing happily, and be killed by someone evil, simply for being.

I know her. That’s how her brain works.

Evil will not triumph on the dancefloor

It’s not my teenage daughter’s job to worry about me. It’s supposed to be the other way around. That’s the way the universe is supposed to work.

But can I tell my daughter her worry is unfounded?

No.

Because the scary truth of it is, it’s sheer luck that I was never in a club at the same time as a monster with an AK-47. This was the killing of my people, in my house. There is no way to pretend otherwise.

So how do I talk about that with my daughter?

In this strange new world where some members of our nation are zealously clinging to their right to own guns, where any attempt at greater gun safety and regulation is met with an outcry of “You can’t take my guns away from me!”, where someone on an FBI watch list can still own a gun and carry it into a place of safety and sanctuary and act out his dream of being a vengeful god, where being gay can still result in persecution, shame and outright fear …

I don’t know what to say to my daughter about that. She’s afraid for me, and I can’t tell her that fear is unfounded.

All I can tell her is this:

Yes, there is a lot of hatred in the world.

That hatred tends to come from fear and ignorance of those we don’t understand.

That hatred can sometimes result in evil, violent action.

But there are far more people who believe in the value of love, and human life, than not. Evil doesn’t rule. It just gets more press.

Oh, and one other thing:

There’s no way in hell that evil is going to keep me from dancing. Ever.

Pulse nightclub mass shooting photo: ©  Alex / Adobe Stock.

The pandemic first impacted most of us when many restaurants and bars closed to indoor dining one year ago. Where I live, that shutdown occurred the day after my wife and I celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary at a local restaurant. We remember eating that night and thinking, “There’s no way they’ll shut down this restaurant.” We all know what happened next: a full year of pandemic family life.

When I reflect on the past year, I start with gratitude. My wife and I have remained healthy and employed, and my two daughters have been able to continue school virtually with few problems.

But after that, I join the majority of families tired of living the underscheduled life. When someone asked me recently what my family did for the weekend, I thought it was a joke. Given the extremely cold winter and ongoing shutdowns, the answer has defaulted to “takeout and TV.” Or sometimes, “TV and takeout.”

On the way to pick up all that takeout with my teen daughter, however, we have started to bond over an unlikely source: music. Thanks to satellite radio, we take turns switching channels but also decades while sharing songs. She shares her pop favorites from the 2010s and ’20s. I share my favorites from the 1980s and ’90s. Granted, we don’t always love each other’s time travel. But let’s face it: since the rise of rock and roll (among other genres) in the 1950s, parents and children have been closer in their musical tastes than previous generations.

How do I know? When I accidentally turn on stations that play music from the 1940s and ’50s, I have a visceral reaction. It’s as if my father’s music and mine are from two different galaxies while my daughter’s and mine are from nearby planets.

Sharing songs, stories bring families together

Sometimes, however, celestial confusion reigns. For example, one day “Give a Little Bit” by Supertramp came on the radio. My daughter, who did not see that I had put on one of my “old” stations, declared “this group must have remade the Goo Goo Dolls’ song!”

I had to laugh. I explained that Supertramp made the song in 1977 and the Goo Goo Dolls remade it in 2004. (I’m the youngest of six, so my childhood music stretched back into the 1970s.) But the mention of the Goo Goo Dolls reminded me of a story that upped my “cool quotient” with my daughter and tightened our musical bonds.

I explained that back at my college in Buffalo, New York, there was a little-known local band that used to play at the campus rathskellar (nicknamed The Rat as so many of them were). Their name: The Goo Goo Dolls. I’ll never forget reading the flier on a light pole and thinking “weird name, but maybe they’ll be good.” Of course, they were incredible, and I’ve always regretted that I didn’t keep a copy of that flier from my college days. The next year at that college, though, I met my wife, and thankfully I’ve managed to keep her for 26 years now.

Granted, such a warm concert memory is bittersweet during a pandemic. All college kids should be hearing new bands at places like The Rat and laughing at crazy band names on campus fliers. Hopefully those days will return soon.

In the meantime, families should continue sharing stories along with songs during these extended hours together, at home, waiting for more life to resume. We’ve all had to give a little bit, and many have had to give a lot. But families need to keep giving to each other, keep providing each other space for a little bit longer. At least this experience is bonding parents and children in myriad ways, some of which may not become apparent for decades.

Speaking of decades, my wife and I just made our plan for our 26^th wedding anniversary. Our tentative, might-get-cancelled hope is to eat in something called an outdoor “gondola.” Far from a romantic boat ride in Venice, we’ll be sitting in a ski-lift style cable car. But hey, after the year families have been through, it will be smooth skiing for a few hours someplace other than home.

Photo by Kevin McKeever