Hope
I’ve always loved Valentine’s Day.
I love how every store you walk into looks like love just threw up all over it. I love red. I love pink. I love chocolate and wine and flowers. I love love…
This year was no different. It was a beautiful day filled with flowers and love, but then an alert popped up on my phone.
School shooting in Parkland, FL.
I read the alert…and then I went on with my day.
I was numb. Not the type of numb where you’re so consumed by grief you can’t bear to feel. Not the type of numb where you’re in denial of what’s going on. Just…numb.
In 2012, 20 six- and seven-year-olds were shot. Twenty families spent their holidays looking at gifts that would never be opened. Twenty families’ lives were forever drastically altered in a matter of moments. Twenty families shared their stories and begged for change.
And more than five years later, nothing has changed.
If a mass shooting can happen at an elementary school, and the people in power still aren’t motivated to make a change, nothing will motivate them. And that is why I was numb. That’s why I wasn’t shocked about the Las Vegas shooting. That’s why I was able to go about my day after the Valentine’s Day massacre popped up on my phone screen.
It occurred to me later that night when I realized my husband and I hadn’t even discussed the shooting. We had talked about everything else. Why wasn’t the shooting something that came up during our regular conversation? It’s because it happens all the time. We’re already in the double digits for 2018, and we’re not even a quarter of the way through the year.
People want guns to “protect” themselves. (Because that’s why any normal person purchases an assault rifle.) It’s the second amendment. If you start trying to put regulations on it, the right as a whole will be revoked, never to be restored. You know, like when they made us put seatbelts in cars to make them safer and suddenly cars ceased to exist. (Thanks for that analogy, President Obama. You’re great, and we miss you, and PLEASE COME BACK.)
[Side note: If you haven’t watched President Obama articulate this way better than I am, check it out here.]
Anyway, I was numb. Sean was numb. We later talked about how sad it is that we hadn’t thought to discuss it. How the country is doomed. How nothing will ever change. How maybe we shouldn’t go to that concert in August because it might not be safe.
Numb.
But then there was Emma. And Jaclyn. And Delaney. And Sarah. And all of the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High who put aside the fact that they’re teenagers and stood up for what they believed in. All of these students could have mourned and then moved on. Gone back to their normal lives. Nobody would have blamed them. They’re just kids. But they didn’t. They forewent their rights to a normal year of fun and frivolity to do something. To make sure this never happens again.
Since they stepped up and decided to be the adults our policy makers can’t be, I’ve been consumed. It’s all I can think about. It’s all I can read about. I’m obsessed.
For the first time, I feel like there’s hope for our country. My heart aches for the students who lost friends, the families who lost children, the teachers who lost confidence. My heart aches for Emma and Delaney and Jaclyn and Sarah and everyone else because they’re in completely new territory. Right now, they should be thinking about prom and graduation and parties, but instead they’re thinking about policy reform. They’re taking on a huge burden for the entire nation. They’re doing what so many have failed to do.
Thank you. Thank you for keeping the fight going and not getting distracted by shiny objects (like the rest of us). Thank you for standing up and not backing down. Thank you for restoring hope.
To quote my president, “We've been waiting for you. And we've got your backs.”