Women of Denver Magazine: Summer 2018

INVISIBLE WOUNDS
She intentionally set her alarm to wake up to ?Good Day,? a song from the
hip-hop band Nappy Roots. Part of the chorus is: ?Ain?t nobody gotta cry to
today, cause ain?t nobody gonna die today. Save that drama for another day.
Hey! We?re gonna have a good day.?
Sherrie Lawson got up, got ready, put on her four-inch Kenneth Cole suede
wedges, slung her Michael Kors bag over her shoulder and headed out the
door to get to an 8 a.m. meeting her program manager had called. ?It was a
beautiful day weather-wise. It was gorgeous. It was probably 80-degrees
that day; the sun was out. It was just a
really nice day,? Lawson said.
She ?was in a really good place? on the
morning of September 16, 2015. She
loved living in Washington, D.C. and
owned her own home in Ward 7. She was
finishing up her doctorate degree while
working with the Navy and was a
contractor for a software engineering
company. In addition to all that, she was
an elected official as an Advisory
Neighborhood Commissioner and had traveled to over 25 countries.
She arrived on base at the Washington, D.C. Navy Yard. Her clearance got
her through the front gate, but not without a little flirting from the guard as
he checked her I.D. Then she walked hurriedly through the yard to get to
Building 197 where the meeting was being held.
Determined to get her Pumpkin Spiced Latte and Greek yogurt before the
meeting started, Lawson rushed past Mike Ridgell, the security guard, who
sat in the hallway everyday.
?I had made it a point a couple months before that I?m going to speak to
Mike when I go in. And that particular morning I was rushing so I didn?t
speak to him.?
She saw him out of the corner of her eye, and didn?t give it a second
thought. Little did she know that that was the last time she would ever walk
by him.
A few minutes after the meeting started, around 8:17 a.m., the program
manager heard a strange sound and asked the group, ?Was that gun fire??
The steel, glass and metal building often echoed the sounds of people
setting up tables and chairs in the cafeteria and auditoriums nearby. The
others didn?t think much of it and went back to the meeting. Then a second
round of noise rang out and this time no one thought it was just the clang of
moving furniture. The program manager and another one of Lawson?s
colleagues went to check it out.
She remained in the conference room until the team lead
decided this might be something serious. She wanted to
go to her office to gather her things. Lawson decided to do
the same.
?I got to my desk and right at that time a group of people
were running. They were running by us and they were
frantic,? Lawson said. Then one of them shouted five
words that would change her life forever: ?There?s a
shooter. Get out!?
They walk among us everyday but you can?t tell who they
are just by looking at them. They may be your barista, your mail carrier,
your neighbor. They are the survivors of mass tragedy.
The Washington Navy Yard shooting occurred on September 16, 2013,
when a lone gunman, 34-year-old Aaron Alexis, fatally shot 12 people and
injured three others. It was the second-deadliest mass murder on a U.S.
military base.
Although Lawson made it out of Building 197 safe, she did not make it out
unharmed. The shooters in these mass tragedies do not wreak havoc for just
one day. They create a tremendous amount of collateral damage.
Later that week, Lawson and her coworkers were told to come back to the
building to get their laptops. She made an attempt to resume her normal
routine and took the bus to the scene where 12 people were killed. ?I
couldn?t get off in front of Navy Yard. I couldn?t do it. I got there and I
became very emotional and I just stayed on and finally got off in front of the
Marine barracks, which was a couple blocks away and just broke down in
the middle of the sidewalk. That was the first time I really felt the gravity of
what happened,? Lawson said.
32 thewomenofdenver.com