It’s December 26th, the day after Christmas.

I’ve just come home from shopping for a late Christmas present – another pair of Sketchers rip-off sneakers since I destroyed my last pair during the better part of the Fall semester.

I settle down on my living room couch with a turkey sandwich to enjoy the pleasures of my new Seven double DVD (thanks to my sister for a great Christmas gift).

I turn on my TV to see the words “7 killed in Wakefield office shooting” splashed across the local news broadcast. I do a double take. I rub my eyes to make sure that they are not deceiving me. I turn the channel from seven to four to five and back again. Then, the painful reality sets in. It’s real. They’re not kidding. Seven people have just been shot and killed in my hometown, where I’ve lived my entire life.

The news teams do their usual bit. I’ve seen segments like this a thousand times. I’m sure everyone has. They start asking people who were in the building at the time the seemingly obvious question, “Did you feel like you were in any danger at the time?” It’s an absurd question at any time, but now it feels particularly dumb. This time, it is all different somehow. This time, I recognize the backdrops for the interviews. I recognize where these people are, even if I do not know them.

The TV cuts to some aerial footage of the area and I realize that I know where these people were shot even better than I had originally thought. It’s the office building across from St. Joseph’s Parish.

St. Joseph’s Parish. I was baptized there. I received my First Communion there. I was confirmed there. For the greater part of 16 years, I spent one hour there every Sunday. Only two days earlier, less than forty-eight hours earlier, on Christmas Eve, I went to Mass there.

The camera pans left slowly.

I parked in that garage! That same garage where police officers now held 42-year-old Michael McDermott’s car in custody. I might have even parked in the same spot. Forty-two-year-old Michael McDermott, who had just shown up for work the day after Christmas and killed seven people.

Back to the aerial footage. There’s St. Joseph’s school only minutes down the street. For eleven years, I attended school there – complete with nuns, and the Our Father and turn the other cheek.

There’s the 7-11. We used to walk there after school to get Slurpees and candy bars and those cr