More times than not when I write on here, it’s about good memories. This is not that, this is October 1st, 2017…
Las Vegas. A city enriched in grit, gambling, hope, dreams, and… nightmares.
It’s also the city I grew up in, the city my great-grandfather started his hotel business, and the site of one of the worst tragedies in United States history.
I say these things because it’s part of the foundation, and that foundation is part of my story before the visual bucket list.
As the child of divorced parents, I have two hometowns: Marietta, Georgia (just north of Atlanta), and Las Vegas, Nevada. Both places are special, and there’s nobody prouder to say they are from either one than me. It brings a lot of joy when I hear someone say Marietta or when I can tell someone that the property and site of the Vegas Golden Knights arena (T-Mobile Arena) was once owned by my family.
Pride doesn’t go away. Questioning why doesn’t either, though.
In 2017, I was back living in Las Vegas, working in radio. It was Sunday, October 1st and I had just finished recording a radio show. As everyone I was with went our separate ways, my plan was to go to the strip for the Route 91 Harvest Festival. I had been looking at tickets all week and decided I’d go. However, before getting my ticket, I was asked to work the following morning as one of my co-workers was going out of town. I said sure, and instead of going, I’d just stay home since I had to be up around 2 a.m.
I recall going to sleep and waking up to the sound of helicopters over my apartment. Followed by my dad watching the news reporting on a shooting. That shooting was at Route 91. I remember talking to my friend John; he was on his way to the radio station. We had to get on the air; we had to talk about what was happening. I agreed and got in my car. I lived on the opposite side of the highway from The Strip but still close enough you could see it from my balcony. As I pulled out of my neighborhood, it was different; you could feel it in the air. I stopped at the gas station at the corner of Tropicana and the 15. The parking lot was full of people, just standing around, confused, disoriented, out of breath. I spoke to a man without a shirt on, and he began to tell me his story. He flew in from Alaska; and right there at that moment, I noticed the blood. The blood belonged to his friend; he said his friend was missing. We spoke a little longer, and I got back in the car to go to the radio station. A ride that felt like an eternity. I called my mom on the East Coast and just said, "I’m okay; I didn’t go."
I got to the radio station; John was already on the air; he was there with some of our other staff. I got on the air with him as the phone lines were open.
"98.5 KLUC, what’s your name…?”
We received calls from people saying they hoped people were safe, calls from people who worked on the strip recounting the night, and then a call from a woman who was a bartender at the festival. She began to tell us from her point of view what happened and how she saw people falling in front of her. How she and other people tried to save a man. To this day, I believe that phone call was just running on adrenaline; she heard a voice on the other end of the radio say if you want to let people know you’re okay to call, and she did just that.
The days that followed were rough.
Las Vegas became empty, our streets were blocked off, news cameras from around the world sat at the Tropicana Casino just outside the crime scene. But so did flowers and crosses, and people mourning the 58 people lost. I went down there; I prayed with an older gentleman from Billy Graham’s church that flew in from North Carolina to help. I went to a candlelight vigil just a mile south of the site and stood there with fellow 20-somethings recalling the night, and all of us talking about how we move forward. I went to a fire station and collected bottled water for us to give to law enforcement and volunteers. A city, my city, known for being touristy, felt local and small. We used the words "Vegas Strong" to say one man can’t destroy us. Though we felt devastated.
It was then that I would lay in bed at night and ask why. Why did you change my plans? I was going to be there. I had every intent to.
I wasn’t asking as in I wanted to experience fear or death, but it was more of, I’m not special; why go out of your way for me? I believe only God has that answer. It’s an answer I’ve been seeking but will never know. My therapist calls that survivor’s guilt.
That man I spoke to at the gas station. After he spoke to me, he did a news interview. People began to call him a false flag and a crisis actor. I know he wasn’t. The bartender later told the exact same heroic story on Good Morning America. They had their stories of that night; everyone in Las Vegas did. About two years later, I was moving out of my apartment in San Diego and sold some furniture on Facebook. As I was helping the girl that bought some smaller things, I noticed an orange ribbon magnet with a 91 on her trunk. I looked at it, and she nodded; I nodded too. It was unspoken but we got it, that night had shaken us both.
Every year on October 1st, I can’t sleep because I think. Think of the one-word question, “why?”
I wasn’t at the concert; I wasn’t hiding for my life; I wasn’t in fear for the 11 minutes of hell and the unknown in the minutes after. I was home because a higher calling changed my path.
I recall that night so much in my head. It gives me nightmares, it has me ask more questions. As it’s shaped me, it’s gutted me, and left me with more why’s and what if’s than I have answers. But it’s part of my foundation, and it made me stronger.
Just like I know my hometown is.
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