Barcelona Terror Attack

4. Living in New York the past few years, it can be easy to feel like other people’s problems when they happen in other countries. Victims from far away in places I’ve never been. but this weekend I went home to Arlington and found that my home state of Virginia was the site for a car attack at a school where some of my friends are going. Today, I’m in Spain, visiting family to hear that Barcelona, where my cousin is studying has been subject to another car attack, this time even more deadly. thankfully no one I knew was hurt, yet these times the attacks felt closer and closer.

If it’s not friends it’s family, if not abroad it’s home. Terror is not something to ignore till it arrives at our doorstep, it can happen anywhere to anyone and while we shouldn’t give in and be frightened, we can’t simply look at it like someone else’s responsibility.

— Federico in Valencia, Spain, reacting to an article about a terrorist attack in Barcelona.