A few weeks ago, my son Michael and I talked about what he would do if an active shooter entered his school. He’s practiced this, they’ve had drills and he seems to know what he’s supposed to do and how he’s supposed to react.

I pray to God that he never has to experience that, but I’m also not naive enough to believe it could never happen here. Tragedy can strike anywhere, at anytime, and as parents, we can only hope that our children will know how to best respond when faced with danger. Where will he go, will he try and fight, what happens if his teacher is injured?

These are the conversations that I, as a parent of an incredibly smart, handsome, compassionate kid, must have with my 12-year-old. Every day, he gets on the bus, and I almost have to hold my breath until he steps off of it at the end of the day. Every day, I have to worry whether or not he finished his homework, or if someone says something mean to him that sets him over the edge, or, God forbid, a gunman enters his school.

We don’t want to think about these awful tragedies happening in our own communities; yet time and again, we are forced to. I am forced to talk to my pre-teen son about things that I’m not even sure I fully comprehend.

I’m hopeful that something like what happened in Florida won’t happen in our community. When I watched the news coverage on television directly following the events on Valentine’s Day, I pictured my son, I pictured his friends, and I pictured his school.

My son is my whole world. Every day that he has been in it has been an indescribable blessing. I can’t imagine a world where he does not grow up, where he does not become someone who truly makes a difference in the lives of everyone around him. He used to always say he wanted to be a police officer who fights bad guys, but now he’s not so sure that’s what he wants to do. I can’t say I blame him.

The news stories haunt me as a parent. How easily that could have been here is in the back of my mind each and every day. Parkland may be in Florida, and I may be in Missouri, but that is our community, that’s our school, those are our kids. And I’m not okay with it.