Apparently all it took for a tragedy to really hit me was having it occur 140 miles from home.

I have a tough time comprehending affairs going on in other parts of the country; needless to say my national news knowledge is complete crap. Columbine happened when I was in high school, and while I knew it was a horrible incident, it didn't leave me worried about going to school. It didn't make me imagine being directly affected by a school shooting.

Even though thousands of my fellow Americans died in the 9/11 attacks, I can't remember being torn apart to the point that I couldn't function (which is how I think I should have felt, looking back). I was upset, most certainly, but I couldn't fathom having my sister or boyfriend or grandma or best friend as one of the dead.

I know the war in Iraq is proving more devastating to American troops than anyone could have imagined. I have the utmost respect for men and women serving in our military and I know that they're putting their lives on the line, but sometimes I don't think that many of the lives being lost over there are of my peers - men and women my age, perhaps freshly married with babies on the way, looking forward to a long, happy lives. (Ignore that eye-popping run-on. I don't have the brain-power to fix it before 9 a.m.)

I guess what I'm trying to say is I'm feeling a bit crushed - winded, almost - thinking about the Red Lake shootings. I thought for sure that school shootings would hit Iowa before they made their way to northern Minnesota. The enrollment at Red Lake High School is 280 students, grades 10 through 12. That's three and a half times the enrollment at the high school I attended, but Red Lake is considered a small school (and a rural town) nonetheless. Red Lake is a reservation; Tower, located right next to a reservation, also schools a high population of Native Americans. My sister-in-law works at a reservation school in northern Minnesota, where she teaches a slew of troubled children.

Wow. Could have heppened to me, huh? I mean, if it's going on a couple of hours away, why not? Who's to say my brother's wife couldn't get shot? I wonder if she feels queasy disciplining in her classroom. I wonder if any teachers do.

The similarities may not seem so striking to an outsider, but I'm left thinking about Tower's problem students and the school's complete lack of security. I'm also left thinking how sad it is that security could be a concern at a building that I know every nook and cranny of, where I spent 13 years of my life and where I felt completely safe.