I would first like to begin by saying how I am so heartbroken over the amount of lives we have lost this past week. Lives that were gone too soon. Lives that were taken from us. Husbands, brothers, sons and cousins. Taken from their families. For no good reason.

I have no idea how the families of these individuals are dealing. My grandfather passed away last year and I still can't quite cope with it. And he died from health issues. I can't imagine what it must be like to know that your loved one died at the hands of someone with a gun.

One of the worst parts about this whole situation is when I told my friends that I was writing my article on the shootings, many of them asked "which ones?" Isn't that sad? My heart fell when I realized that there was no way for them to know which ones because there have been so many.

Did y'all know that I wanted to write a fun and "normal" article this week? I wanted to write an article that might get shared more than 50 times. I wanted to write a generic article. A light-hearted article. A carefree article. After I had made my peace with Jennifer Mayers, I finally felt like I could come back to the happy side of Odyssey. It wasn't until I had shared countless videos and articles and pictures about the events that occurred last week that I had my epiphany. And I knew I had to speak up about what's going on.

None of us are new to this rodeo. We've all heard of the countless number of shootings that have happened just this year alone. Whenever something like this happens, we are urged to picture someone we love in the place of the person who was shot. And that never really bothered me. I never could picture it. I felt bad for the families, but I could never imagine their pain. I never really could picture someone in my family being that person who's life has ended.

Wednesday night, after Alton Sterling's death, I was scrolling through Facebook. I was reading people's thoughts, sharing videos, and just feeling defeated. "Why does this keep happening?" I thought to myself. Then, I stumbled upon a friend's post that linked to a blog post called, "If You Are White." It was when I read this post that my eyes were finally opened. I don't know what it was about this post. Maybe it was the time of night, maybe it was my emotions going crazy, but when I read the words "I want you to imagine a man that you love ... Now replace Mr. Sterling with the man you love," I thought of my dad.

I thought of my dad and then I wept.

If you know me, you know that I cry a lot, but I promise you that you've never seen me cry the way I did on Wednesday night.

It was like nothing I have ever experienced. It was like being in a bad dream and never waking up because even though my dad is still alive, someone else's dad isn't.

My dad is a black man in America. And while he may not be selling CDs at a gas station or getting pulled over by a cop, he is a black man.

My grandfather was a black man. My uncles are black men. My cousins are black men. Literally any one of them could have been Alton Sterling. And even now as I write this, I find it hard to keep this image out of my mind. My heart is aching. My soul is just torn apart. My whole being is just so sad and so tired.

To the family of Alton Sterling, I am so sorry for your loss.

To the family of Philander Castile, I'm sorry for your loss.

To the families of the Dallas police officers, I'm sorry for your loss.

Lorne Ahrens

Michael Krol

Michael J. Smith

Brent Thompson

Patrick Zamarripa

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

I wish there was something I could say or do to bring back your loved ones. But unfortunately, I can't do that for you. But what I can offer you is my voice. I promise to not remain silent on this matter.

Our country is hurting. Oh boy, is our country hurting. We can't agree on much of anything and nothing is getting accomplished. And people are dying.

There's a lot of emotions going on right now. People are sad and angry and don't know what to do. And that's okay. You're allowed to feel these feelings. It's how you act on them that makes the difference.

Martin Luther King Jr. has always been a hero of mine. I used to listen to his speeches on my mp3 player back in the day. He said a lot of amazing things in his speeches, but perhaps one of the most important things he said was, "Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that."

A lot of people's first instincts are to point fingers. Find the enemy and blast them full throttle. No one ever stops and thinks. We must think about the situation and see the bigger picture. Lives were lost. Families are broken. We need to love one another now more than ever.

Trevor Noah from Comedy Central's The Daily Show said, "You can be pro-cop and pro-black." It doesn't have to be an either or thing. @MyDaughtersArmy tweeted, "You can be outraged by the death of an innocent man and the deaths of men protecting peaceful protesters. It's not one or the other.#Dallas" People think that if you're pro something you're anti something else, when in fact it's not that simple. We are complex creatures with varying opinions on everything. The most important thing is that we discuss these opinions in a constructive way. There's no reason we can't all have a conversation.

People say #blacklivesmatter or #alllivesmatter and that has struck up a huge debate. I think the people that are saying all lives matter aren't denying that black lives matter, I think they are just simply missing the point.

There are several analogies and ways to put it, but in the simplest of terms I say this: isn't it a given that all lives matter? Because let me tell you, if you don't think that all lives matter already, we're worse off than I thought.

Black lives matter is to all lives matter as feminism is to humanism. Do you see what I mean? If you don't, I understand. But let's open up the conversation.

I don't know the answers to the problems. I don't have the solution. What I do know is the we work better together. Keke Palmer said in her snap story (keekthasneak) that if we can stop thinking that our suffering is more or less important than someone else's and realize that we all know what it is to suffer, we can come together and no one can stop us. I can't tell you what it's like to be a black man, or a lesbian, or a Muslim American, because I am not one of those people. Just like you can't tell me what it's like to be a mixed girl. Just because you don't understand someone's suffering doesn't mean it's any less or more than yours.

Let's come together.

Let's grieve together.

Let's love one another.

Let's do something.

Let's make a change.