Aurora colorado3/13/2023 “This is an everyday pain that we carry.” But then you’re kind of quickly brought back to it. “It’s just a constant … I mean you’re able to … I can read, I can watch a movie, I can watch a game and you get to be released from the thoughts of what happened. “It just never goes away,” Sullivan said. So he heads to the theater.Īnd that is when he most remembers what he has lost - the buddy who would go on guys’ weekends with him to Las Vegas the loving soul who would have adored the niece he never got to meet the irrepressible spirit so excited about seeing a new Batman movie on the night he was killed that he got there seven hours early and cheered the trailers. He’s a dad who wants to watch a movie with his son, like they always used to. (Olivia Sun, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)īut, sometimes, he’s not different at all. Alex, 27 at the time, was one of 12 people who were killed in the Aurora theater shooting in 2012. Tom Sullivan shows a photo of his son, Alex, that he keeps at his desk during the legislative session. “Maybe the Tom Sullivan of 10 years ago would have been awe-inspired by this, but the one that has been dealing with gun violence and doing the work daily and having to wake up each day without his son here, I’m not as awe-inspired to see them,” Sullivan said. Earlier this month, he flew to Washington, D.C., met the president, and would later recall it as not that big of a deal. He has fought and won multiple contentious political campaigns. He is a state representative at the heart of efforts to strengthen gun laws to prevent violence. He’s a grandfather, his first grandchild, a girl, born less than a year ago. In many ways, Tom Sullivan is a vastly different person today. And sometimes 10 years can change nothing. Sometimes 10 years can change everything. But I’m a little more comfortable to be there because I know that he’s there and I can kind of just sit there like we did before.” “At the theater is kind of the same thing. I don’t know what I’m supposed to say while I’m there. “Are you supposed to talk to him? Are you supposed to read to him? I’ve gone and had a drink there. I don’t know how to do that,” Sullivan said. “I’m still struggling with the trips to the cemetery. There, in the middle, that’s where Alex was sitting. The seat numbers are different, but no matter. He walks down the same hallway that his son, Alex, did on the night he turned 27 - the night he was shot and killed. But this is where Tom Sullivan comes to remember.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |