As I write this, Christmas has passed, Thanksgiving is a month gone and the new year has arrived. The holiday season had always been a time of being with family and counting my blessings. It was especially so six years ago. You see, my son, Telemachus Orfanos, had survived the worst mass shooting in modern United States history just 53 days before Thanksgiving. To say that I was thankful is an absurd understatement. The day after that horrendous massacre in Las Vegas, when my son returned home, I wrapped him in my arms and, for the longest time, refused to let go. The sadness and horror in his eyes broke my heart and the death and devastation which he had witnessed left him deeply traumatized. Yet, I was thankful. My son had returned home. Hundreds of other families were not so fortunate. Hundreds of other families faced an empty chair at the dinner table. I could barely comprehend what Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year were like for those families, but I would find out.
Just after midnight on November 8, 2018 we were awakened by a phone call from my cousin on the other side of the country. As I was rubbing sleep from my eyes, she asked, “Is Telemachus ok?” I was trying to comprehend the question, when she said that there had been a mass shooting at Borderline Bar and Grill. Borderline was a popular establishment in our hometown of Thousand Oaks, California and my cousin knew that our son was a frequent visitor. An immediate queasiness invaded my stomach as I tried calling my son on the phone. The call went straight to voicemail. I tried texting him. No response. As we piled into the car to drive to Borderline I tried to be optimistic. After all, my son had survived the massacre in Las Vegas just 13 months and 6 days before.
As we arrived there were police everywhere. Shocked and distraught patrons, who had gotten out of the building, were sitting on curbs or wandering around looking for their loved ones. We found some of our son’s friends. They assured us that they had seen him outside of the building. We searched about, but Telemachus was nowhere to be found. Then we drove to the local hospital. We were informed that our son was not there. I kept trying to call and text him. No response.
Just before sunrise a crisis center was set up in the gymnasium at the local teen center. We were told that information would be forthcoming. There were small groups of people gathered in various parts of the building. We realized that the thing we all had in common was that our loved ones had not been accounted for. We were joined by some friends who had arrived to lend us support. We waited.
Around noon local officials started leading one group at a time out of the teen center. Soon they came to us. They guided us to an adjacent room. There were a number of people waiting for us. Among them were social workers and police officers. My knees suddenly started to shake. An officer, as gingerly as possible, told us that our son was dead. Our never-ending nightmare had begun.
We learned that our son, Telemachus, had been shot five times and, as he gasped for breath, bled to death on the floor. That image is seared into my brain, yet there are no words that can sufficiently convey the level of anguish that courses through my body as I try to shake it from my mind. One can, if so inclined, get an inkling of what it is like: Stop, for a moment, and reread the first sentence in this paragraph. Now, replace the name of my son with the name of one of those most dear to you. Read the sentence out loud. Read it again, slowly. For those of you possessive of a soul, that sick feeling deep in your gut and that sudden heaviness in the vicinity of your heart will give you a vague idea of our daily experience. For those who feel nothing, perhaps it is time to reassess your humanity.
Since our son was gunned down, our experience has led me to some inescapable revelations. I have discovered, most profoundly, that the old adage “time heals all wounds” is untrue. Instead it has become painfully clear that time is relative and our perception of it is impacted directly by the psychological trauma we endure. I have also found, to my great disappointment, that there exists a substratum of our society for which my son’s gruesome death, and the similar deaths of tens of thousands of other Americans every year, is acceptable.
Over the last 1891 days I have become increasingly aware of how fractured our perception of time now is. Since our son was killed we find ourselves trapped in a duality, residing in parallel worlds simultaneously. On the one hand, we are connected to the experience of all those around us: Time passes, seasons change, the sun goes up and down, people move from place to place, there is a sequential progress from moment to moment. Yet, on the other hand, we are isolated and time does not pass. It is eternal and unmoving, and it is here where our wound exists, gaping and deep and gnawing. This reality is manifested, in particular, every night as sleep is interrupted half way to morning and, for a brief moment, there is a feeling that our nightmare has ended. But then, in the darkness, with the mind free of the distractions of the day, reality comes crashing down and the image of my bleeding and dying son floods my consciousness. The weight of that reality presses inexorably upon my chest and I struggle to breathe. This recurring pattern, persistent and unchanging, seems to occupy a space outside of time. It is an experience from which I cannot escape. It is an experience which brings with it an apprehension that having a loved one taken in such a grizzly and appalling way is not something that one gets over, or forgets, or moves on from. It is, rather, something that one endures, or at least attempts to endure, all the while trying desperately to make sense of the incomprehensible. Aeschylus expressed it so perceptively in his play “Agamemnon”:
“Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget
falls drop by drop upon the heart
until, in our own despair, against our will,
comes wisdom through the awful grace of God.”
That pain, deep and unrelenting, is exacerbated by the knowledge that every week hundreds more American families are thrust into our grim reality. Like pouring salt into a wound, we know, all too well, the anguish that they confront. We know the pain that results from staring at the empty chair at the dinner table. We know the interminable, gut-wrenching despair. It is frozen in time.
In the last 1891 days I have discovered that, in spite of the fact that time does not heal, it does lend perspective and insight. Most disturbing has been the realization that there exists a substratum of American society, heavily represented in congress, wherein the killing, the agony and the trauma caused by the gun violence epidemic is acceptable. Not only is it acceptable, but the gun culture which fuels this epidemic is outwardly embraced. Think of how many videos are posted online where members of congress are giddily shooting off every type of firearm; or recall members of congress parading around with pins on their lapels representing the favorite tool of the mass murderer and terrorist, an assault weapon; or call to mind the Christmas cards sent out by Lauren Boebert and Thomas Massie wherein they happily pose with guns to celebrate the birthday of the Prince of Peace. These individuals, who could actually help prevent the constant slaughter, instead, cavalierly flaunt their violent proclivities. In light of the constant misery being inflicted upon our country by gun violence, one has to ask, what kind of callousness induces people to act like this? What sort of innate cruelty drives such complete disregard for compassion or even simple decency?
In the last year five years it has become disturbingly apparent that gun violence has been normalized and any attempt to prevent it is dismissed out of hand. From this perspective, my son bleeding to death on the floor, or children being shredded to pieces by weapons of war, or theatre goers being shot in their seats, or festival attendees being massacred en masse are just accepted as part of living in America. It is this mindset that drives someone like Congressman Tim Burchett, after children were massacred in his district, to shrug his shoulders and say, “Well there’s just nothing we can do about it.” It is this mindset that drives someone like Senator Ted Cruz, after looking at a photo of a child in a coffin, to snidely say that regulating guns like the one that killed her, doesn’t work. When it is pointed out that the countries that do regulate guns don’t suffer from our gun violence epidemic, there is a reflexive regurgitation of excuses, rhetoric, and rationalization for maintaining our current deadly status quo. This embrace of the worst and most violent inclinations of the human character leads to painfully predictable results: thousands more slaughtered Americans every year. In light of this incessant butchery, one has to ask, when will it be enough? In a civilized society, that actually cares about the welfare of its citizens, when will it be enough? One would think that surely Sandy Hook was enough.
Surely Aurora was enough.
Surely Pulse was enough.
Surely Charleston was enough.
Surely Las Vegas was enough.
Surely Parkland was enough.
Surely Thousand Oaks was enough.
Surely Nashville was enough.
Surely 45,000 a year is enough.
But the ugly truth is, it isn’t enough. It’s never enough. Since my son was killed I have learned that, for the rabid substratum of society that prioritizes guns over lives, the killing and the agony and the loss are all acceptable. It reveals, in no uncertain terms, the hard and inescapable truth that our children, our siblings, our parents, our friends, our loved ones, are all expendable. Good God! As the carnage continues, as tens of thousands of Americans are gunned down every year, you have to wonder: How much of one’s soul must be relinquished in order to, not only accept this deadly state of affairs, but actually enable it?
This holiday season, as with the last five, we have faced an empty chair at our dinner table. It is an emptiness that does not diminish and does not fade. In the coming year, as we navigate our way through our fractured comprehension of time, we will, again, have to endure more milestones, more anniversaries and more holidays without our son. As the gun violence epidemic rages there will be constant reminders of our loss. When more and more American families are thrust into their own never-ending nightmare, we will instantly identify with the indescribable suffering they face. It is an infernal situation that will persist so long as there are those who prioritize guns over lives, thereby demonstrating a wanton disregard for the basic tenets of a civilized society.
Marc Orfanos
January 3, 2024