Being from a small town has so many advantages such as all the small-owned businesses, great authentic food, and knowing most of the people. Along with all the advantages, when tragedy hits, knowing most of the people can be a million times sadder.

The town that I was born in is Mount Vernon, Washington. I have lived there my entire life and always thought it was a great place. There were so many friendly people and I was never afraid to go anywhere by myself or do anything on my own. Going away to college, I was sad to leave such a great place with so many friends and family.

When I got to Pullman, the world was new and so exciting. I was having such a great time until the whole Mount Vernon community was crushed when we found out our friend from high school had passed away from cancer. Going to school with him and seeing his face every day, to never seeing him again; it was hard to be so far away and for nobody to get what it felt like except the people from your hometown, which isn't that many.

As with everything, life has to go on and you have to get on your feet and keep moving because life doesn't slow down for anyone, sadly. A few weeks later I was sitting in my dorm by myself since my roommate had gone home and I had got news that a man had gone into our mall and opened fire. My heart immediately stopped at the thought of my family and my friends who lived in my hometown. I called my parents and brother crying needing to make sure they were okay. My heart relieved so much when I found out my family was okay, but I was still thinking about all the community members that I know that could have been impacted. When they released the names of the people that were shot, my heart was crushed to see a girl who I attended high school with. Although I was not super close wither her, it shook my community. I watched as all my high school friends went back to school and grieved. It all was so hard and again, because I was so far away and felt helpless and was hard for others to understand what had happened and how big of an impact it had on my own community.

I thought things couldn't get any worse after all the tragedy my community had seen until Thursday night when I found out that a police officer had been shot in the head defending a gang situation that was going on. It was sad to think not only a month ago the mall shooting had happened and now this. My city has seen so much violence in such a short amount of time and it has honestly it broke me.

Having to go through this six hours away was really tough and it was hard not to have the comfort of your family. You never think it's going to happen to you or your hometown until it does. It's different than when things happen in Seattle. Seeing your small hometown name on national news hurts. It's something you don't want to see because so many people are looking at the articles and watching the news and reading "in Mount Vernon, Washington" and that's the place you grew up. That's the place you know as your home, where nothing bad ever happens. Until it does.