We “welcomed” the month of October with a tragedy. On Oct. 1st-10:05 in the evening at the Route 91 Harvest Music Festival, Stephen Paddock opened fire on the crowd below. Paddock was perched on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino.

Paddock checked into the hotel on Sept. 25th 2017. Six days before he ruined/ended the lives of so many. In the hotel room, 23 guns dominated majority of the space along with thousands of rounds of ammunition. The psycho was well equipped with not only guns and ammunition but with a few cameras monitoring the inside corridor.

The crowd consisted of 22,000 people, among these, over 500 were injured and 58 were confirmed dead. Paddock is not accounted for among these 58, even though the vindictive killer took his own life only minutes after he took plenty of others.

Two weeks after the worst case of human life lost in recent history, thousands of people-many being patrons of that wretched night-walked down the Las Vegas Strip towards Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino. Most of the participants were wearing tribute t-shirts that said, “Las Vegas Strong” and had the names of all 58 who lost their lives.

The trek was three miles long, from Circus-Circus down to Mandalay Bay. All proceeds received from purchases of t-shirts were given to a “GoFundMe” account, Clark County Commission Chairman Steve Sisolak, started to help the victims and families of the victims. The fund raised an estimated 10.8 million dollars as of Sunday.

As the patrons walked, they passed memorials to victims along the boulevard and a sign for the “Route 91 Music Festival”. The crowd arrived at Mandalay Bay around 10:05 pm, participated in an uncommunicated moment of silence and then dispersed.

The wounds left by this soul-scarring event, will forever last longer than a moment of silence. But, hopefully the memory of the victims will live on in the humbled hearts of those who carry on.