I needed to clock out for the day, but someone texted my work phone, asking to talk.
“I have a few minutes,” I texted back, glancing at the time. I stepped out into the fresh air, and my phone rang. That was fast.
“I should’ve called the police today when I heard the gunshots from my apartment. Maybe it could’ve helped.” His voice was twitchy, quavery at the edges.
I paced in the grass of the backyard and listened. He lived close enough to Annunciation Catholic School in Minneapolis to hear the massacre at Mass on the morning of August 27, 2025, during the first week of school.
Into my mind streamed a photo from a news post showing the scene full of police cars. The school building in the background had words etched in stone on its facade: HOUSE OF GOD AND THE GATE OF HEAVEN. Two little children passed through that very gate just today, and time stopped ticking for them. I shivered in the warm sun.
“No,” I said. “It wasn’t your responsibility. Other people were there to help right away. This is not on you.”
He asked me questions no one could answer, and I wondered too. Why? Why did little ones have to die? Islam, his religion, considered children under the age of fifteen to be of no religion—neither Muslim, nor Jewish, nor Christian—only innocent, he said. So, why?
I shook my head into the phone and kept silent. He said if a Somali had done it, there would be riots. He said it didn’t make sense. He said if he could just run for mayor of Minneapolis and win the office, it could all change.
“Are you afraid to die?” he said suddenly.
“No.”
He asked why not, and I told him about the curse, the cross, the crown. The uncertainty of life but the peace and purpose for then, now, and later. He had heard some of it before.
“Are you afraid to die?” I asked him back.
“Yes.”
I asked why, but he changed the subject and talked about inner-city politics and drug-addled street corners and prostitution rings right outside his door.
I shook my head into the phone and kept silent.
And time kept ticking—for us anyway. For now.
*Has My Blonde Life inspired or entertained you? If you wish to toss a tip into my writerly coffers, here's how you can do it: @Tamara-Schierkolk (Venmo), @TamaraSchierkolk (PayPal), or $TamaraSchierkolk (Cash App)
*Names in this blog have been changed to protect my family, neighbors, and friends in the neighborhood, and in a nod of appreciation to the beloved Swedish author Maj Lindman, I’ve renamed my three blondies Flicka, Ricka, and Dicka and their husbands, Snipp, Snapp, and Snurr.