My daughter was in the Brown University library, hiding under the desk | Sarah Ruhl

This normalization of gun violence in the US - who is it serving? Why can we not collectively make this not normal again?

On her first day of fourth grade, wearing her magenta spectacles, my daughter Anna arrived to the Big School where she couldn't reach the drinking fountains. She was small for her age, in terms of stature, though she had big ideas.

I went to pick her up that afternoon, the first day of school, and I looked eagerly at all the young faces streaming out the door, but no Anna. The high schoolers flooded out, then the middle schoolers. Still no Anna. I started to get that mother panic vibration thing in my belly and I called the lower middle school office.

Sarah Ruhl is a playwright, essayist, teacher, mother of three and Brown University graduate. Her most recent book is Lessons from my Teachers, from preschool to the present. Her collaboration with A Great Big World, the musical Wonder, is at American Repertory Theater in Boston through February