Loved

Architecture swallows violence. The streets are washed clean. The walls patched. The holes filled. The windows repaired. And the names and lives of those lost are slowly forgotten. Mothers, fathers, daughters and sons, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles and grandparents and cousins. Human lives lost. Human possibilities erased. An Einstein or a Curie or a Buddha. A shop owner or a waiter. A Van Gogh or Matisse or a Brahms or Beethoven. A farmer or seamstress. They might have led the world to peace. Or they might have written a poem that would have touched you deeply. Or offered you a smile. Or written a song. But they are dead now. Killed violently by whatever act. And their stories are forgotten. Washed away. Except for those who knew them. Architecture swallows all. And we are quick to oblige and forget and erase the pain with the spray of a hose and a patch of plaster.

What if we could change the world one story at a time? What if we could tell the story of each of those people who were violently killed so they don’t just remain a forgotten statistic? What if we had the potential to affect the next wave of violence by telling the stories of those who were murdered for whatever false cause or madness? What if those stories had the power to spread compassion and empathy and gave pause to anyone who contemplated committing these terrible anti-human acts?

This is Loved, a site and mobile app for remembering. It brings the stories of each of those victims back to the last place they were seen laughing, shopping with friends or carrying a child. And gives them back their dignity and humanity as they deserve.

We can change the world, one story at a time. They were loved. And this is how we might start.