Merely days ago the shooting with the highest death count in the United States occurred in my city. Never in my life did I expect this. I feel very fortunate to have not been in Las Vegas during the incident, but that doesn’t mean there was not a dark cloud lingering over me.

It was midnight in Vegas, but midday in Germany and I was finding it so hard to distract myself from the heartache in my hometown. Being so far away and only having what I saw online to try to understand was incredibly frustrating. Seeing all of the different stories pop up, not knowing which was right and waiting hours between media briefs was exhausting. I received texts saying it was a good thing I wasn’t home but that’s the only place I wanted to be. All I wanted to do was hug my family and make sure all of my loved ones were accounted for. It felt wrong continuing on my life in Germany while those back home were facing such horrible circumstances. I wish I could have been there to help.

Flying in from international lines and seeing the city that never sleeps so quiet and still was extraordinarily sobering and made everything very real for me. Up until this point, I wasn’t sure what to feel, but I get it now.

From a global perspective, Las Vegas should be extremely proud of their selflessness. Seeing the community, local and afar,  pull together was so humbling. Beyond the grief and despair, it is incredibly heartwarming to see photos of people lined up to donate blood, news articles of first responders going above and beyond to save lives and to see multiple people raising money to aid victims of the Las Vegas incident. Las Vegas is home, and this is my home.

There were 59 casualties, and over 500 injured and not one of them was someone I personally knew but Las Vegas is a small community, and we are all within one degree of knowing someone that was. We hear about these things quite often, but we don’t realize how real they are until it happens in our own backyard.

My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone who is affected by this tragedy. I’ve seen some healing occurring while others are still worrying. I know this will be a process, but I hope those in need of some extra support understand we as a community are there for them. I have been continuously reminding myself that life goes on and we are #VegasStrong.

Home means Nevada.