BITTERSWEET, Ky. — I feel as though I have spent so much time this year being sad, with the loss of so many great performers. But the sadness I feel right now can’t be described with the loss of so many great fans who wanted nothing more than to have a good time listening to their favorite country performers.

I really don’t have words to explain how this terrible event at the recent outdoor country music festival in Las Vegas makes me feel. I’m sad and mad, and scared and puzzled. I want to stand on my soapbox and shout to the world how this senseless violence needs to end.

And then I just want to sit in a dark room and stay away from the rest of the world.

I was at a small – very small – outdoor festival during the same weekend enjoying some good bluegrass music. I looked around me at all the happy faces, the foot-stomping and hand-clapping, the laughs and smiles of these happy people all enjoying this wonderful music.

Those 58 people who lost their lives that night were doing the same thing: listening to great music, laughing and smiling and dancing. How could something like this happen? Why would it happen?

What can we do to make sure it never happens again?

These are all questions being asked by so many, but the answers are hard to find. I’m not going to use this space to discuss my thoughts on the issues that have risen from the terrible event. But I would like to say how much easier I think it would be to love each other as opposed to being filled with hate.

How much better would life be if we all lived in a world where we truly loved each other, where hate was not allowed, where tolerance was the word of the day, every day?

I know, I know, no matter how much we love each other, there will always be these people that lose it and do terrible things that we have no control over. But maybe, just maybe, if we take the advice an auto mechanics teacher gave me years ago, it would solve some of these problems.

He told me that often a customer will come to the shop with a car issue, asking for it to be repaired, thinking it was one thing when really it was something entirely different.

He had to teach his students that often an issue visible on the surface was being caused by a deeper, root problem. Repairing it without finding that root problem would only solve it temporarily.

If we could only find the root to some of these social problems, perhaps we could stop some of this madness. I pray for those families of the people who perished and those wounded; those still in the hospital fighting for their lives; and the ones who walked away with terrible memories that will never go away.

I pray these kinds of tragedies will become a thing of the past. And I pray we all learn to love each other just a little bit more each day.

Bluegrass Johnson comes from a long line of country music performers and enjoys a passion for the rhythm and melody. From the hills of Kentucky, he will offer his opinions on a variety of new country music each week. Readers with questions or comments may write to Johnson in care of this publication.