5/25/22, AGAIN?
Posted on May 25, 2022
Hi Everyone,
Serious times. Tragic Times. Columbine….Sandy Hook….and now Uvalde….so many other schools….so many children…..so many others, in grocery stores, in churches, in subways, in parks, on the streets….gunned down, because the weapons were available. It’s about inadequate mental health care, about greed and commerce, about a highly profitable lethal industry, and those who defend it. I don’t care about politics. I care about children and other humans, whatever their color or nationality. I ache for the grieving parents whose worst nightmare just happened. I have buried a son. I know their pain, I’ve lived it.
When did children become expendable, when did we stop protecting them, and why? Why wasn’t more done after Sandy Hook, as those parents live with a weight on their hearts forever. In Ukraine children are being bombed and mowed down, infants have been killed, and in schools all around this country. Children used to have fire drills, now they have drills about what to do when a gunman enters their school. They live with fear and survive trauma. Will they be the lucky ones who survive, or the tragedy of those who don’t. Why are the shooters not singled out and stopped sooner. Why are the weapons so readily available? The tragedies are too numerous now to remember…Las Vegas….the school shooting years ago in an Amish school, committed on peaceful unarmed people. Parents drop their children off at school now not knowing if their precious babies will be coming home. What world are they growing up in where violence is commonplace?. And some of our braver lawmakers have said “What are we doing? Why is this happening? Why is no one acting to stop it?” Questions we have to ask ourselves. High school students blame us for not doing more to protect them, and they’re right. These very young children at Uvalde, and at Sandy Hook had no voice to accuse us with, to ask the hard questions. It is OUR job to protect them, and we are failing abysmally. If we go to the grocery store, or the hardware store, or to church on Sunday, we don’t know if we will be gunned down while buying a loaf of bread.
We MUST protect the children and each other….We nurture our children and love them and teach them, and guard their health and get them vaccines against diseases…..and this scourge, this plague is far worse than any other and more destructive. And we will go to bed tonight, knowing that a mother’s heart is aching in Texas after the worst day of her life. Twenty one of them. We must do more than mourn them. We need to change things, to make a difference, to not just roll the dice every morning and hope that our kids will come home from school today. We need action and commitment and courage. When our children were born, we vowed to protect them. And then one deranged person changes everything….with a gun, and bullets. There aren’t enough tears in the world to wash our consciences clean, of all that we haven’t done to change it.
A tragedy like this cant happen again. Those children deserved to grow old, to have children and grandchildren one day. We are all responsible for their deaths, because we have done nothing to stop it. May all of the children who have died as victims of these tragedies live forever in our hearts, and it’s up to us to save their sisters and brothers, protect them, and make it a safe world.
with all my love, Danielle