On August 1, 2026, I thought about going to the new In-N-Out in Twin Falls to buy a hamburger.
I did not go.
Later that day, a gunman opened fire there and in the surrounding area.
Ashley Garibay, 23, Dale Schultz, 66, and Christopher Claunch, 59, were killed. Seven other people were wounded. The gunman, 24-year-old Chad Williams, later died by suicide.
Since then, I have kept thinking about one ordinary decision: I almost went there.
I cannot say I would have been killed. Nobody can know that.
But I have trouble walking and cannot run well. If I had been there when the shooting started, getting away would have been difficult.
That thought has stayed with me.
Ashley Garibay came to Twin Falls from Stockton, California, to help train employees at the newly opened restaurant.
I also came here from California.
I never knew her, but that small connection makes her death feel closer.
There is another connection.
Chad Williams once attended the College of Southern Idaho.
I am also a CSI student.
I did not know him either. Sharing a school does not explain what he did, and nothing excuses the killing of innocent people.
But it still hurts to think that someone only 24 years old ended three lives and then his own.
What happened that day could easily become another headline: three dead, seven wounded, shooter dead.
But those numbers were people.
Ashley had come here for work.
Christopher had spent years helping people recover from addiction.
Dale was traveling with his wife to a family reunion.
They expected to continue their lives.
So did I.
That may be what frightens me most.
There was nothing unusual about wanting a hamburger on a Saturday afternoon.
There was nothing unusual about going to work, traveling with your wife, or stopping somewhere along the road.
Then, within minutes, several lives were gone and many others were permanently changed.
I do not want this shooting to make me hate Twin Falls.
I do not want to hate CSI because the gunman once studied there.
I do not want to become afraid of every ordinary place.
My feeling is closer to a Chinese word that is difficult to translate exactly:
舍不得.
It means that something matters so much that you cannot bear the thought of losing it.
I feel that way about people.
About California.
About Idaho.
About Twin Falls.
About ordinary days when people go to work, drive somewhere, eat a hamburger, go home and expect there will be another day.
I am still here because, for reasons I could never have planned, I decided not to go.
Ashley, Dale and Christopher are not.
I do not know how to make sense of that.
I can only remember them.
And remember that an ordinary life is not ordinary once it is gone.
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