This
has been an emotional day. For many of us. For most of us.
My
heroes today are children, thrust into a spotlight they were never meant to
occupy. Or maybe they were. I find it hard to reconcile the movement with the
deaths that finally jarred it into existence.
For
years, I wrote anti-gun pieces for HuffPost
and in this blog, and anywhere anyone would listen, as shooting after
shooting took place. Maybe it assuaged my feeling of helplessness. Or maybe it
gave voice to a grieving parent. I don’t know, because those weren’t the people
I heard from.
As
anyone who has been vocal about gun legislation can tell you, there are
threats, and whether or not those threats are viable is the question we get to
live with as the cost of taking a stand.
It’s
easier not to say anything. Not to be vocal. Not to write a letter or call a
Congressman. It’s easier to be silent. But to be silent is to be complicit, and
sooner or later we all must decide what it is we are willing to be complicit
in, exactly.
I’ll
be honest with you, the past year and five months, roughly, have exhausted the
hell out of me. I’ve looked at the world and thought it was beyond redemption,
beyond my ability to impact any healing of it, and not really a place I particularly
wanted to be, anymore. The only problem is I’m here. And so are you. And so are
all of us who are tired of fighting fights that seems futile.
Enter
the children from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Leaders
born of necessity. Courageous in ways they never should have had to be. And
these kids are fearlessly showing an entire population that miserably failed
them, how it’s done. How to behave like grownups in a world where the actual
grownups act like petulant children. How to have a singular vision and purpose
and relentlessly pursue it.
For
the first time in a long time, I am looking at these grieving children and
feeling a sense of hope and promise. And I cry because their loss has been our
nation’s gain. And it’s not fair.
They
should be contemplating prom dates and colleges, not how to get corrupt
politicians to stop taking bribes from the NRA. But we didn’t get that done for
them, so they will – with or without us.
As
Emma Gonzalez stood silently in front of the massive crowd, for the time it
took the gunman to ravage her school and take out her classmates, history was
made. In the long uncomfortable silence. In the tears. In a sobering moment
where a teenager had to remind us to do our freakin’ jobs as human beings.
I
will always believe that the value of our lives is in how well we love. It is
in how kind we can be to one another, how much compassion we have, how well we
care for the least among us.
The
children redeemed us today. And if we have any desire to love well, then we will return
the favor.
