In the land of the free and the home of the brave, bullets rained down on our July 4th parade

HIGHLAND PARK, ILL. – A metronome of bullets. A child’s scream. It’s all too much. In the land of the free and the home of the brave, what other choice do we have but to be brave when bullets rain on our parade? Is this freedom? I am shocked. I am scared. I am sad. I am mad.

In the manager’s office of the popular restaurant called Walker Bros. The Original Pancake House – home of the famous apple pancake – I find myself on the floor, with my head under the desk and my feet propped high. My pulse is still racing from running from flying bullets through the kitchen of one of my favorite restaurants, where my father’s birthday breakfast had been prepared just 48 hours ago. I am hiding with others, including a dog, and wondering whose blood is on the animal’s face. Strangers assure me no blood is mine as I lay on the floor and wonder who died. Was my family alive? Minutes pass. The office has become my bunker, and I learn the names of the strangers hiding along with me. A child tells me he doesn’t want to die. All the while, I try to grasp what has just happened: A parade gone awry, leaving people to die. This is not how I planned to spend America’s Independence Day.

It’s my father’s 70th birthday weekend, and our family is together again. My younger sister, nephew, and brother-in-law travel from the East Coast, and I’m home for the summer from South Korea where I teach U.S. military-connected children. My sister and I had spent months planning our dad’s milestone birthday. When asked how he wanted to celebrate his special day, his sole request was to spend his birthday together with his family.

So on Saturday, July 2, we began his birthday with breakfast at Walker Bros. in Highland Park, Ill. Even though we grew up and went to high school in the next suburb, Highland Park was a part of our lives. My sister and I were born in Highland Park Hospital. Our mom died there. Our Jewish learning and bat mitzvahs took place at the same synagogue our mom attended when she and my uncle were growing up in Highland Park. Many of our overnight camp friends are from Highland Park, and I worked at Highland Park High School earlier in my career. We shopped there. We filled our cars with gas there. We dined there. Our grandparents lived there. The safe and beautiful suburb of Highland Park is a central part of what I still consider “home.”

Starting my dad’s birthday with a smorgasbord – including Walker Bros.’s famous apple pancake – seemed like the proper way to kick off the day of birthday surprises. It also included tickets to the Broadway musical “SIX” and dinner at Morton’s steakhouse, a favorite of my dad’s. In between, we sat in Chicago’s Millennium Park.

Amidst all the conversation, my dad said something that became an eerie foreshadow to what would play out in the days ahead. He noted how “nowhere is safe” and how his close friend no longer comes downtown. I didn’t quite know what he meant. Nothing felt unsafe to me. As someone living overseas, I wasn’t a witness to the uptick in crime – until I was.

On the floor, I try to make sense of what led me to this restaurant manager’s office. The will to live had taken over and carried me inside. There would be no birthday candles in ice cream after an apple pancake today. I had made a last-minute decision to go to the Highland Park 4th of July parade. I knew my best friend from childhood and her family would be marching with the JCC. While I had some graduate school work to do before heading to fireworks that night, I didn’t want to miss the festivities. I love holiday celebrations. On the office floor, I focus on staying conscious and try not to faint. The phone rings. My childhood friend tells me she’s OK. She wants to know if I’m OK. Am I OK?

I check my body and ask two strangers to do the same. I’m not sure. What had happened? I had heard what I thought were fireworks. But they didn’t’ stop. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom. Boom, Boom. Boom. Like a metronome, the sound continued. That’s why I was there in the pancake house’s back room. As a teacher, the active shooter drill trainings I had participated in had kicked in. As others dove onto the pavement, I recalled my online module’s instructions to get low but stay on my feet to avoid a ricocheting bullet. I had run for cover into the restaurant. Was this for real? In Highland Park? My dad was right. Nowhere is safe.

The unimaginable was in my head. Minutes before, I had seen my sister with her family and friends just in front of the circle bench. Was she alive? In the office, a man sits with his dog, Max. We introduce ourselves and ask a lot of questions. Are you injured? Whose blood is on Max’s face? Do you have a charger? I tell him my sister was out there. Is she OK? My nephew was there, too. It was his first parade. He is 5. Is he alive? Is my brother-in-law alive? Are their friends and their friend’s mom alive?

After many minutes of trying to catch my breath, restaurant staff flurrying, and more people pouring in, my phone rings. My sister tells me that her hand was grazed by a bullet. I am reassured that she is alive. All who were there watching with her also are alive. My nephew is alive. My brother-in-law is alive. Their friends, friends’ kids, and friend’s mom are all alive. While my dad was blissfully asleep at home, his two girls had been in the line of fire of a mad shooter, a local man, who also called Highland Park home.

Forty-eight hours after the birthday breakfast, and two hours after hiding in the manager’s office of my favorite pancake place, I am escorted out by armed police to the parking garage below. “Walk in a pack,” I am told. On the way, I turn away from the covered bodies on pools of blood, which I never should have glanced at. I tell a stranger, “I shouldn’t look at this. It will traumatize me.” I get in my car and drive. I am still afraid of fainting, but keep on driving. I need to get away. Should I go home? No. I shouldn’t be alone. I drive, drive, drive to the shelter of my friend’s home after circling the streets lost in a familiar place. I wonder: Will I ever feel safe again?

An experience like this doesn’t end with leaving the scene. It hangs around. But what also follows is love, and support of friends, family, and this community. In the days since, I have put names to faces of the people with whom I spent two terrifying hours in hiding. We have talked and begun to heal.

As I access the outpouring of community services, from free counseling to bagels, to therapy dogs and fidget toys, and everything in between, I recognize my privilege. I know that there are people who experience gun violence every day in America. When my Black student with intellectual disabilities was shot in the foot in his neighborhood 20 miles away, were there therapy dogs to calm his nerves, bagels to nourish, and counselors to care?

In my early attempts to heal and patch together the sense of safety I once felt, I have turned to Judaism as an important part of this process. As I was offered an impressive array of assistance by the FBI Victim Services staff and American Red Cross volunteers on my visit to Highland Park High School two days later, it was important to me to speak to someone at the “spiritual” table. There were two rabbis there and I fumbled for questions to ask. When my mother died suddenly almost 10 years ago, the ritual of burial and shiva gave me the steps to get through the days. I was advised what was to be and how to behave. But, I wondered, what’s the Jewish way for climbing out of the trauma of a mass shooting?

Rabbis, congregants, and community members spoke at nearby Glencoe’s Am Shalom synagogue. My hand held a candle and a close friend stood by for support. Why? Why? Why? I wanted answers but all I could do was shake and sometimes cry.

A week later and the scene replays. More questions than answers arise. I enter restaurants wondering where I will hide and wish that the trauma will subside. I think about how lucky I am that my family, friends, and I are alive. I grapple with how to use this experience to educate and advocate for change. In a matter of seconds, bullets ripped apart flesh, families, and festivities. What will it take to solve the American problem of gun violence on our city streets, in our schools, and at our celebrations? And, a voice inside again asks, will we ever feel safe again?

Editor’s note: Seven people were killed and 46 others were wounded by gunfire from a lone gunman at the Highland Park parade shooting. He was apprehended and charged with seven counts of first-degree murder.

Kim Goldsmith is a special educator who grew up in Northbrook, Ill.