Grumpy and I discussed it on our way home. We share the same ideas on the public sale of military grade weaponry. He, as a retired member of the military, and I, as a mother and all-round rational human being, think they have no place in civilian society. But that isn't what I want to write about.
I told him that I couldn't spend too much of my energy grieving for these families. If I threw myself into the whole cycle of grief every time there's a mass shooting on the news, I said, I'd never be able to come up for air. I can't be an effective part of the solution if I don't practice good self-care.
Then, while my pastor was talking about the shooting last weekend in church, and conducting a ritual that she initially created as a way to commemorate victims of another school shooting a few years back, she remarked that she'd had to draw upon this ritual too many times. The ritual involves placing rocks -- one for each victim -- in a bowl of salty water that represents tears. She said that her collection of rocks was piling up too high. It was impactful, but as congregants formed a line to walk to the podium and participate, my mind kind of drifted off in other directions -- the new job starting the next day, the origami cranes strung on delicate threads and draped in front of the windows where they softly danced in the draft, what I would eat for lunch after church, what I would pack for lunch for work the next day, and really, how was work the next day going to go?
A few weeks ago, Live From Here (the show formerly known as Prairie Home Companion) featured a reading by novelist George Saunders of an excerpt from his book, Lincoln In The Bardo. In this excerpt, President Lincoln sat in the crypt of his son, newly dead from typhoid, processing his grief and thinking at the same time about the memorials being held for the fallen Union soldiers. He talked about those in the crowd -- himself included -- who harbored a secret happiness that they, themselves, had not had to experience the same loss. And now he was no longer in that group. He had now suffered the loss of a child.
I am one of the parents that secretly harbors the happiness that I am not among those that have suffered the loss of a child. I have the privilege of allowing my mind to drift during a memorial service because I am not in the grip of violent grief. The chances of my daughter's school being the next mass shooting news story are slim to none. But then again, before [I will not dignify him with a name] opened fire, so was Douglas High in Parkland, Fl -- rated one of the safest places to live.
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I started writing this piece last week but got cut off before I could finish because the library closed. So much has happened this week that has tweaked the perspective I held a week ago. Last week I was writing with the belief that school shootings are just part of the new dystopian reality we live in and there is nothing to be done but sit back and watch and try to keep your own soul intact.
Boy was I wrong. Shit. Is. Going. Down.
I am in awe of the sheer badassery of the Parkland survivors. The voices of these children are leading a revolution that we complacent adults had come to believe impossible. Watching and listening these kids, I know in my heart I am looking at the future of political leadership, and the future of political leadership looks good. The kids are going to be all right. Emma Gonzales is my new hero.
My daughter shared something she wrote with me this week that puts her also on my shortlist of heroes. I share it here with her permission:
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I stand here on this ground in a mix of pride, anger, and disgust.
Anger is what gave me the ability to stand here in jeans and a T-shirt.
Pride is what gave me the chance to stand up for myself and fight.
And disgust. Disgust is why I’m here.
I stand for those who cannot stand for themselves.
The gays. The trans. The people of color. The women and the men and everything in between who fought for our rights and died for us. You wave that flag like it is your birthright and whine about immigrants in our great country yet do not acknowledge the people who have died in our claim of this land.
I shouldn't have to hear stories of women being terrified of walking home alone at night. I shouldn't see women on the street tense and clutching their keys in her hand like it's a weapon when I'm out with my dad.
I should not have to see one gender so terrified to be alone at night because of the other gender.
‘Not all men’ is a ridiculous statement. If not all men, why are you making it about all men? You claim to support women yet still say she was asking for it when a woman is raped. When she's killed. When she dies because her body couldn't handle a baby and nobody would let her have an abortion.
‘Straight pride’ is also ridiculous. You whine and complain about ‘the gays’ having an entire month to themselves but refuse to acknowledge that Life is just a ‘straight pride’ in and of itself. You do not have to be scared of holding your partner's hand in public. You do not have to be scared of your basic human rights being ripped away from you over something so trivial as what gender you like.
I like to imagine people in different categories.
First you have the entitled, the straight white people who cry about their rights ‘being taken away’ when they have to hide their bigotry about other people's rights.
Then there's the helpfuls, the straight white people who do everything in their power to help the minorities in every way they can. I would like to personally categorize my own mother into this particular trope as she is the woman who made feminism such a staple in my life I never realized it wasn't as massively supported as I thought it was until I was fourteen.
Then there's the people of color, the ones who try to stand for themselves and get shot down, often quite literally. I don't like reading about a black man who was gunned down by police for being ‘hostile’ when all he wanted was help with a flat tire.
The LGBTQ+ community as a whole. I have only seen one website that wasn't specifically about gay people that was so accepting of the LGBT to the point of where- after hours and hours and hours looking through posts on that site I was never, ever, able to find a single homophobic or transphobic post. I bring to you: Tumblr. I am astonished by how welcoming that website is and how quick they are to educate and correct someone's bigotry. It makes me proud to be one of the many who use that site.
The massacre of the Florida Shooting has affected students everywhere and while I may not be around to participate in the National School Walkout on March 24th, I will do everything in my power to support it and spread the word. 17 people, maybe even more, lost their lives that day. Students, kids, just like me, died because of one group’s ignorance and refusal to restrict gun laws. Your ignorance and bigotry means nothing to me, you fascist bastards. I will make you learn. I will make you pay.
I refuse to be walked on. I refuse to be a toy. I refuse to stand by and watch as you take away my rights and use others like me like they’re nothing but puppets. I refuse to let you destroy me and all those around me for your own gain. I will not set myself on fire to keep you warm.
I will stand for my mother. My father. My brothers and my friends and their friends too. I will stand for those who cannot do so themselves and if you dare challenge my pride, you may come at me with all you wish.
For I am a woman, and women are fiercer than men could ever hope to be.
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Like I said, the kids are going to be alright.
