Eighteen years ago, on Feb. 12, 2007, my husband Jeff, and our 16-year-old son, AJ, were shopping at Trolley Square for some last minute Valentine’s Day cards and gifts. It was intended to be a simple, ordinary errand, filled with love. Jeff called me to say they were bringing home dinner and I replied, “Hurry home, we are starving. Love you.”
Those words would be my last words to him.
On the top level of the back parking lot, just four feet from their car, Jeff and AJ encountered a man cloaked in a black trench coat, holding a pistol-grip shotgun. There was no warning, no chance to escape. Jeff instinctually turned towards AJ — a split second decision that ultimately saved our son’s life. A father’s love in motion. Jeff was killed instantly. The shotgun spray tore across AJ’s head. He crumpled to the ground, bleeding, barely holding on. In that moment, Jeff’s life ended, and AJ immediately began a journey of traumatic recovery that would last years.
It’s strange to replay these events. It’s difficult to find the words to describe a 20-second event that would ultimately re-shape everything I’ve ever known — everything I’ve ever believed. In that moment, the world that I knew and loved was shattered. It’s as though an atomic bomb had just been detonated at the center of our life — a flash of destruction, a force so powerful that it left an unrelenting cloud of devastation in its wake. That cloud, that reverberation, would linger, drifting through every moment of our lives since.
The residual effects of tragedy
Grief is not a straight path. Healing does not come in stages, neatly wrapped in a timeline. The aftermath of violence seeps into every crevice of your being. It’s the sound of a phone ringing in the night that makes your stomach drop. The sudden, sharp scent of his cologne lingering in an old jacket. The feeling of an empty chair at the dinner table. The realization that, no matter how much time has passed, the love of my life will never be walking back through our door.
What we weren’t prepared for
There is absolutely nothing that could prepare you for the moment in life when your world is split in two: before and after. No one teaches you how to make life-altering decisions while drowning in trauma. In those early hours, days and weeks, our brains were locked in survival mode. We hear the phrase flight or fight, but mostly it was just numb. And yet, in those fragile moments, you are asked to make impossible choices. Funeral arrangements, legal processes, the care of a recovering child, the simple act of waking up the next morning … it all seemed impossible.
We didn’t know, but we later learned that there are organizations — lifelines — that exist for people like us. Victim advocates, the Utah Office for Victims of Crime, Caring Connections at the University of Utah and nonprofit organizations offering guidance and resources when you can barely think, let alone navigate what comes next.
Finding purpose in the pain
I stopped believing, long ago, that everything happens for a reason. Things like this don’t happen for a reason. But I knew we had a choice. We could let this tragedy consume us, or we could try, somehow, to create meaning from this wreckage. Jeff’s selfless act, his final instinct to shield AJ, became a guiding light. When the dust settled, we realized that healing wasn’t about putting our lives back together, or re-creating what once was. That life, as we knew it, was gone. If we were going to heal, it was going to require forging a new path, one that honored Jeff’s memory and helped others find their way through darkness.
In 2010, we founded Circles of Comfort.
Our mission is simple: to be there for victims and survivors of violent crime and sudden loss; to offer guidance, resources and understanding in those first, unbearable hours, days and weeks. To be the support we wished we had known existed.
Why this matters
According to the Gun Violence Archive, mass shootings account for a small portion of gun violence incidents in the United States. But my family understands the impact all too well, and it is a terrible, isolating feeling.
Gun violence continues to be a growing problem in our country, and it causes far too many deaths each year. There is no awareness campaign that will erase the past, no resource center that will change the events of the past that I so desperately would love to change. We cannot bring Jeff back. But we can educate our communities. We can help others recognize trauma and extend compassion to those who are drowning in it. We can create a world where no one has to walk this path alone, and just maybe, we can create a world where we are all a little more safe, a little more loved, a little more compassionate.
This is how we honor Jeff. This is how we survive.
(Vickie Walker) Vickie Walker is the founder and executive director of a Utah nonprofit, Circles of Comfort.
Vickie Walker is the founder and executive director of a Utah nonprofit, Circles of Comfort, and has been recognized locally with several humanitarian awards. She is the mother of four and currently resides in Salt Lake City.
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