Dear Children,
I am so sorry. I am sorry you are living in a time when you are unprotected from the ugliness of the world; where hate and racism and fear is at your very fingertips, inescapable on your iPhones and in the forefront of your days. I am sorry that we as adults have failed you. We have failed to protect you from the divisive and greedy underbelly of our country, and it has bled into your psyche and your ways of being. There is no shelter from the news and the fallout from our short-sighted decisions and lack of action.
I am sorry that you are scared to go to school. I am sorry that your lives have been and forever will be shaped by the overwhelming presence of guns in our society. I am sorry that you will jump every time a fire alarm rings or a lockdown drill is scheduled. I am sorry that when my 13 year old goes to soccer practice and an emergency evacuation takes place due to a false alarm, that the team will cooly assume it is due to a shooting in the building. This is the new normal. But it is not by any means normal. It breaks my heart that you are growing up in this kind of culture, and it is not, by any standard, ok.
We have failed you. Our collective greed, political stance, desire for profit and grandstanding has driven us to the lowest level of existence, and it is just plain wrong. We have lost our way.
A a mother, I cannot sleep tonight. I keep thinking of those poor parents who had to identify their children's bodies, ransacked by bullets, ripped apart and blood drained, rendered unrecognizable and lifeless. I keep thinking of their classmates and friends who were firsthand witnesses to this horror; who have to somehow go on and find strength to continue with their lives seeing things through the filter of violence and bloodshed. I do not have words that even come close to the kind of strength and courage that impossible task requires.
Today, across this country, thousands of you walked out of school to draw attention to the senseless murders of your classmates and to those who you did not even know, but who were, like you - at school, sitting at desks, getting ready for practice, looking forward to going home, accepted to colleges, going to a party, growing up and taking on their own lives - when they were randomly and senselessly mowed down by someone with an assault rifle. Some of you saw your best friends get their faces quite literally blown off, watched their warm red blood flow onto your classroom floors, heard their screams and were paralyzed with the most unimaginable horror and fear ever possible on this planet, and screamed those screams yourselves. And still, you survived.
You are, impossibly and unfairly, our hope in these dark times. Your sense of right and wrong is steadfast and unbroken, and you acted upon it today. Please know that we adults watched you with a curious mix of awe and amazement, of anger and hope. Your impassioned and fiery speeches, your angry and intelligent signs, and your willingness to show up and step out is a true testament to the human spirit at its very finest. We need your fierce, unadulterated and undiluted passion. It washes over us - stripping us of the layers of numbness and impartiality we have built up just to cope over years of fear and pain. Your energy and spirit renews us, and inspires us to not give in, to not give up, but to move ahead step by step through these dark times and to seek brighter days ahead. We are amazed by your resilience and your indignant and justified rage. It reminds us of who we were before we became numb, and of all the work yet to be done.
Dear Children,
You are our light and our truth and our way. I am sorry that this burden is yours but I cannot imagine entrusting it to anyone more brave, more passionate or more worthy than you. Lead us and we will do our best to follow.
Love,
The Adults of America
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