Numb To This: Memoir of a Mass Shooting by Kindra Neely

When Kindra was thirteen-years-old, she and her mother moved from Wichita Falls, Texas to Oregon. Life was very different in Oregon compared to Texas. In Texas, she played in storm drains, her school had metal detectors, police officers and police dogs. Life became more difficult when her mother had to leave her job at the air force because of a disability. Eventually they lived at the edge of town. Everyone carried guns in Texas so it felt normal. However, when there was a drive-by shooting a few houses down, Kindra's mother decided to move back to her hometown of Roseburg, Oregon. 

In Roseburg, Kindra attended the same high school her mother, making lots of friends. With friends like Chloe, Brett and Casey she hung out at the river. Her school had security guards but their role was to make sure students attended class. 

When she was seventeen, Kindra was unsure what she wanted to do, so she, along with many of her classmates, decided to attend UCC - Umpqua Community College in Roseburg. Kindra knew she wanted to help others. She met many new friends there, including her best friend Jasmine. But one day her life changed in a terrible way.

One morning, after attending her geology lab, Kindra was on her way to the pool where she worked, when she heard shots. At first she was not sure what was happening. Was a shooting really taking place? Eventually she met her friends Cara and Kaleb, and they told her that a shooter was in Snyder Hall. They decided to leave campus by taking the nature path, but Kindra didn't feel right doing this. She was concerned for those students she'd already encountered on campus who were confused and didn't seem to know what was happening. So she returned to the campus.

On the campus, Kindra and some other students locked themselves in a classroom and then were finally given the all clear, that "it's over." But Kindra was confused. Where was she to go? Was work cancelled? Kindra went to the pool where she was let into the building and took a call from her friend Christian whose mom worked in Snyder. Because no one knew what was going on, they were moved to the gym. Kindra called her mom, telling her she has heard that there are twenty people dead. After three hours in the gym the police arrived to take them to the fairgrounds

Kindra's friend Josh was with her as they were searched. Overhead she could hear the woompf of the helicopters. They were taken by bus to the fairgrounds where she finally met up with her mother and her friends, Chloe and Jasmine. Before she was even home, a picture of Kindra and Josh was published in the national newspaper. This made her angry because it felt like they were being violated.

Kindra and her mother along with many others attended a candlelight vigil that night. Students returned to school a week later, although some of the buildings were still closed. Kindra was asked to make memorial for Larry, a professor who was killed. An avid fly-fisherman, he had finally seen a red dragonfly the week before the shooting, so Kindra designed a beautiful memorial of dragonflies created with tiles.

As life moved on, Kindra decided to apply to SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) in Savannah, Georgia. At this time she struggled with many things in her life: what to study, her friendships which were strained. Everything felt off and wrong. Eventually she decided to enroll at SCAD. When she graduated, what should have felt like a happy moment, did not feel that way. Even when she won the Harry Jacoby Award for the person who shows excellence in school and community, Kindra felt distant and unimportant.

But on her twentieth birthday, Kindra had to face the reality of another mass shooting, this time in Orlando, at the Pulse nightclub. As these events seemed to be happening everywhere, fear began to take over. Kindra did not see the point in having another birthday if this is the way life would be. For the entire summer, Kindra felt numb and as if nothing really mattered. This feeling would continue until finally Kindra just decided she couldn't go on. It was a phone call from her best friend Jasmine who saved her life....and began her journey back.

Discussion

Numb To This explores one young woman's journey to heal in the aftermath of a mass shooting. Kindra Neely was a student at Umpqua Community College in October of 2015 when a twenty-six-year-old student shot and killed an assistant professor and eight students and wounded eight others. The college was closed for a week while police investigated.

The title, Numb To This,  is  a reference to then President Obama's speech in response to the shooting:
"Earlier this year, I answered a question in an interview by saying, “The United States of America is the one advanced nation on Earth in which we do not have sufficient common-sense gun-safety laws -- even in the face of repeated mass killings.”  And later that day, there was a mass shooting at a movie theater in Lafayette, Louisiana.  That day!  Somehow this has become routine.  The reporting is routine. My response here at this podium ends up being routine.  The conversation in the aftermath of it.  We've become numb to this.

 

We talked about this after Columbine and Blacksburg, after Tucson, after Newtown, after Aurora, after Charleston.  It cannot be this easy for somebody who wants to inflict harm on other people to get his or her hands on a gun."

In this graphic memoir of a mass shooting, Kindra Neely takes her readers through her own personal journey of dealing with the trauma of a mass shooting and beginning to take steps to heal. After the shooting, and in light of another, Kindra found herself feeling that life was "pointless" because these shootings would simply continue to happen. This led her to simply want to stop living, but a phone call from her best friend, Jasmine saved her life. 

Although life appeared to go on as normal for Kindra, inside she found herself struggling. She wanted to tell people that things were not right, "but everyone kept telling me how strong I was and I didn't want to disappoint them." She found moments of happiness such as at her friends' wedding but that would not be enough.

Kindra began experiencing panic attacks: rooms with only one exit, helicopters and the anniversary of the shooting triggered flashbacks. Another shooting, on the anniversary of the UCC shooting, but in Las Vegas on October 1, 2017 that would kill 60 people and injure over eight hundred people, triggered a complete emotional breakdown for Kindra. This started a vicious cycle of debilitating panic attacks and led Kindra to see danger everywhere.

When a fellow student at SCAD had a sister who experienced a mass shooting, Kindra reached out hoping to help. While attending the March For Our Lives in 2018, one of Kindra's friends, Josh had a panic attack. This led Kindra to truly see what she herself was experiencing as she viewed what Josh went through and that she should seek help.

Part of her healing process was the creation of "a book to show people like me that they aren't alone or that their feelings are normal." It wasn't until the third anniversary of the shooting that Kindra did seek help through student counselling. As mass shootings continued, Kindra began to be honest with friends and family about what she had experienced. Kindra's message is for us to listen with patience and humility to the survivors. They are who should be seen and heard. This was very much the opposite of what she and others experienced immediately after the shooting.

Kindra Neely has crafted an informative and sensitive graphic memoir. Her beautiful colour illustrations capture the intense emotions, the confusion, pain and suffering that survivors of mass shootings experience. It also portrays just how difficult the path to healing can be, with survivors like Kindra experiencing denial, encountering the expectation they will be "strong", experiencing difficulty in finding the right kind of help in a timely manner, and struggling to learn to live again.

Her message, using the medium of a well crafted graphic novel is powerful, much needed and encourages us all to support the survivor community. 

Book Details:

Numb To This: Memoir of a Mass Shooting by Kindra Neely
New York: Little, Brown and Company       2022
192 pp.

Refugee by Alan Gratz

Refugee tells the stories of three refugees from different countries and different time periods in alternating narratives.

Josef Landau 1938

Twelve-year-old Josef Landau, a Jewish boy living in Berlin in 1938, is awoken one night to the sounds of Nazi Brownshirts trashing his family's apartment and taking away his father, Aaron. Josef's father was forbidden to practice law because he is Jewish and he is hauled away for breaking the Civil Service Restoration Act of 1933. Later Josef learns that his family was not the only one who was attacked. In what has become known as Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass, many other Jewish families and businesses were destroyed.Six months after he'd been arrested, Josef's father was released from a concentration camp called Dachau on the condition that he leave the country within fourteen days.

Josef, his younger sister Ruthie and his mother travel from Lehrter Bahnhof, Berlin's main railway station to Hamburg Central Railway Station. It is May, 1939 and Josef's family is to meet their father in Hamburg, board a ship that will take them to Cuba, the only country still willing to admit Jewish refugees. They ultimately hope to travel from Cuba to the United States.

In Hamburg, their rendezvous with Josef's father is frightening, as he is gaunt, and paranoid. He is determined they board the ship, the MS St. Louis immediately rushing up the ramp and past the soldier taking tickets. While Josef and Ruthie go on deck, the parents are left alone in the cabin. 

Their journey on the MS St.Louis will not be what they expect. Despite the happy mood of the refugees on the ship, Josef's father insists it is all a trap and that they will end up back in Germany. As his paranoia increases, Josef begins to wonder if their voyage will it offer them what they were hoping for, life in a new country, safe from the Nazis.

Isabel Fernandez 1994

Eleven-year-old Isabel Fernandez lives just outside of Havana in Cuba, in 1994. Isabel is hungry and poor, like everyone else in Cuba. With the fall of communism in 1989, the Soviet Union dissolving meant that Russia was no longer buying Cuba's sugar for eleven times the price and in exchange sending Cuba food, gasoline and medicine. With no one to buy the sugar cane, farms failed, refineries closed and people were out of work. Domestic animals were eaten to stave off hunger, even the animals in the Havana Zoo. Isabel's friend and neighbour, Ivan Castillo tells her his father is building a doghouse, but she knows they are making a boat to sail to the United States. If they are caught, they will be thrown into jail, like Isabel's father, Geraldo was when his second attempt to flee to the United States failed.

However, things turn very desperate for Isabel's father when a riot breaks out on the Malecon, a broad street in Havana. Isabel is on the street, preparing to play her trumpet. Busking is a way for her to earn a bit of money to help out her family. But when a riot breaks out over the food shortage, Isabel finds her father and grandfather in the middle of it. After her father tosses a bottle at the police line, he is singled out and beaten by a policeman. Isabel tries to intervene and is almost attacked herself, but she and her father are saved by Ivan's brother, Luis who is a new policeman. However, his attacker threatens to hunt him down and have him arrested. Isabel knows her father must now flee Cuba.

Back at home, while Isabel's mother is tending to her father's wounds, Fidel Castro comes on television and after a long rant, tells Cubans that those who want to leave the country may do so. Isabel's father is determined to leave but her grandfather, Lito is against the idea. He insists that Geraldo just needs to lay low for a while. However, Isabel comes up with the idea that they should all leave, even though her mother is due to give birth in a week's time. 

Isabel approaches her neighbour, Mr.Rudi Castillo who is working on his boat. Mr. Castillo refuses to include her family, telling Isabel he has no gasoline, so she sells her trumpet to a local fisherman in exchange for gasoline. When Isabel and her family along with the Castillos arrive at the beach carrying the boat, they are shocked to see hundreds of people doing the same. As they are launching their boat, Luis Castillo and his girlfriend Amara join them. Because the police are not allowed to leave, they are pursued by fellow officers and gunshots fired, but the boat gets away safely. 

Isabel and her family along with the Castillos immediately experience problems. The boat motor dies, and then they are swamped by a near-miss with a tanker which almost costs Mr. Castillo his life. But the dangers are not over yet, and by the time their journey is over, their chance at a better life will come at great cost.

Mahmoud 2015

Twelve-year-old Mahmoud lives in Aleppo, Syria with his mother, Fatima, his father Youssef, his baby sister Hana, and his ten-year-old brother Waleed. Aleppo had been a thriving, modern city in Syria until the coming of the Arab Spring in 2011. Protesting against President Bashar al-Assad had led to Assad attacking his own people. Now in 2015, war is all that Mahmoud and his family know. 

As they are finishing their afternoon prayer, a missile destroys the building housing Mahmoud's family. They manage to escape their apartment before the entire building collapses. Mahmoud's father, Youssef, who was an engineer with a mobile phone company, arrives home and  immediately tells them they are leaving Aleppo at once for Turkey. In Turkey, they will sell their car and travel north to Germany which is accepting refugees.

An hour out of Aleppa, Mahmoud's father is forced to stop by armed soldiers and give them a ride to the highway. However, before they reach the highway their car is attacked and Mahmoud and his family barely escape. As they flee in terror from the gun battle, they leave behind everything they own except their phones and chargers. After a long walk Mahmound's family arrive at the Turkish border along with thousands of other refugees. At the border near the city of Kilis,  they show their papers, and are admitted to the country. Almost immediately, Mahmoud's father manages to make arrangements with a smuggler to take them by boat from Ismir to Greece. But after a two day ride across Turkey in cars and buses, they arrive at Ismir only to be told that the boat will be ready the next day. 

After days of waiting, their boat is finally ready to take them across the Mediterranean Sea to Greece. Crammed into a black inflatable rubber dinghy with an outboard motor, the crossing turns into a terrifying disaster that almost sees the family drown. Mahmoud makes a split-second decision to save his baby sister Hana. Their long journey to a better life will come with much sacrifice but with hope too.

Discussion

Refugee follows three families as they flee their home countries for the safety of another land. For each family the reason is different; for Josef, a German Jew, it is persecution by the Nazi government, for Mahoud it is war that makes life impossible, and for Isabel it is poverty and the communist government of Cuba. 

Gratz seamlessly weaves together the three narratives, while drawing his readers into each separate story with exciting chapter endings.  Despite the expansive time frame stretching from 1939 to 2015, Gratz, through the stories in Refugee, demonstrates how all of us are interconnected through time, place and people. And in ways least expected.

These connections become apparent only near the end of the novel. For example, Josef's family along with the other Jewish passengers on the MS Louis are eagerly awaiting permission to disembark the ship and begin life in Cuba. Instead of being allowed to leave, Cuban policemen are sent on board. When Josef's father attempts to commit suicide by jumping overboard, he is saved by a young Cuban policeman, Mariano Padon. Years later, that same Cuban man, now Isabel's grandfather Lito, decides to jump out of their boat as a diversion to the U.S. Coast Guard, giving Isabel, her mother and father and the Castillo's the chance to get to the beach at Miami. 

Lito tells his granddaughter Isabel that he kept hoping things would change but did nothing. "I see it now Chabela. All  of it. The past, the present, the future. All my life, I kept waiting for things to get better. For the bright promise of manana. But a funny thing happened while I was waiting for the world to change, Chabela: It didn't. Because I didn't change it. I'm not going to make the same mistake twice." Lito makes the decision to sacrifice his chance to get to the US and to act as a diversion for the Coast Guard, giving Isabel and the people in their boat the chance to get to freedom.

Josef's family also becomes connected to Mahmoud's family in 2015 when Mahmoud and his family arrive as refugees in Germany. They are taken in by an elderly German couple, Saul and Ruthie Rosenberg. She tells Mahmoud and his parents that she was once a refugee too and how she lost her brother Josef and her mother, who both died in a concentration camp. Ruthie, now very old, understands what it is like to be refugee and she acts by bringing a Syrian family into her home.

The connection between each place in the story is interesting to consider. One country, dangerous in 1939, is now a place of refuge in 2015. Josef's family is seeking to flee Berlin, Germany, while Mahmoud's family is struggling years later to find safety in Berlin. Another place, Havana Cuba, potentially a place of safety in 1939, is a dangerous in 1994 to those not supportive of Fidel Castro.  Josef's family hopes to find safety in Havana, Cuba, while years later, Isabel's family is fleeing that very country, for the safety of the United States. These connections are not lost on Mahmoud. "Mahmoud knew from his history class back in Syria that Berlin had been all but destroyed by the end of World War II, reduced to a pile of rubble like Aleppo was now. Would it take another seventy years for Syria to return from the ashes the way German did?..."

There are many other connections to explore in Refugee. These include the similarities in the journeys of the refugees. For example, all of the refugees in the story travel at some point by boat. Their journey on water is fraught with danger and in each case, they experience the loss of someone dear to them. 

In Refugee, Gratz does a remarkable job portraying the humanity of the different refugees and in challenging readers through these portrayals, to consider how they are not so different, with hopes, dreams and the desire to live in freedom. The  novel demonstrates that the reasons people flee their homeland are similar regardless of era or place and that their experiences in their adopted countries are also similar. The reasons the Jews fled Germany in 1939 is similar to why Cubans left their island in 1994 and why Syrians fled in 2015. 

Refugee is another outstanding novel by Alan Gratz. The author has included maps at the back, showing the journey of each refugee and there is an extensive Author's Note providing the backstory to each refugee's narrative. Refugee provides an excellent opportunity for students in Grades 5 to 8 to explore the issue of refugees and the world's response to the crisis of displaced persons.

Book Details:

Refugee by Alan Gratz
New York: Scholastic Press     2017
338 pp.