You know it’s gonna’ be a long night when the darkness doesn’t end with the morning. When the clear light of day gets choked by a thick fog. And when monsters and malevolence no longer lurk in the shadows but walk shamelessly in the noonday sun.

You know it’s gonna’ be a long night when the questions that so earnestly demanded answers are no longer asked. When tolls rise far above what you thought you could ever endure, and your once, worst fears, now seem like a good deal no longer on the table. And when the bright light of a hero is snuffed out in his sleep, and you realize you have to be your own light now. And you can’t back down.

But long nights have not always been so fraught. There was a time when you knew it was gonna’ be a long night chewing on unlit cigars outside the hospital delivery room, waiting to see if you should return the blue paint or the pink paint you bought for the nursery. When the friend you hadn’t seen in years showed up at your front door with a bottle of single malt scotch eager to finish the conversation you started as kids. Or that baseball game you waited your whole life to witness, kept you on the edge of your seat past the bottom of the ninth, into the tenth, the eleventh and beyond.

A mad gunman killed 59 people and wounded another 527 in Las Vegas. Tom Petty stopped breathing forever. And so did countless others, unnamed across our country and its territories. I’m a hopeful man, and I know tomorrow will be a better day, but I believe it’s going to be a long night for a long time.

Filed under: In Tribute, The Big Picture