Emma Gonzalez brought me to tears today. She took the stage and held the attention of the crowd and the camera for six minutes and twenty seconds. Emma, for those of you who might not know, is a student from Parkland, Florida, and a survivor of the mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Emma spoke passionately and movingly about the students who lost their lives that day. Her words were intense and captivating, Then, for the remainder of the six minutes and twenty seconds, Emma stood silently, looking straight into the lens of the camera. She never broke from her purpose in the powerful silence, and I felt every beat of my own heart as I watched. I felt awe, frustration, sympathy, anger, sadness, futility, and a glimmer of optimism as this mixture of emotion streamed from my eyes.
Edna Chavez also brought me to tears today. Edna is not from Parkland. Edna did not survive six minutes and twenty seconds of horror during which seventeen of her friends died. She knows deeply of senseless loss because her brother was killed. Edna has lived all of her seventeen years in South Central Los Angeles. She stated today that she learned to duck from bullets before she learned how to read. She spoke of “loved ones being lost to anxiety” from living in an environment that is so beset by violence all the time. The constraints of live television did not afford the chance for her to stand silently for seventeen years to make us feel the length of the terror to which she has grown so accustomed.
The poise and composure of these two brave young women lies in contrast to the chaotic horrors about which they were speaking. Death being the common thread between two very different types of horror. One was at a high school building and lasted several minutes, while the other grips vast areas of this country and is immeasurable by clock or calendar. Both are equally, even if differently tragic. I cry for all of them, regardless of the duration.
As much as the searing words of Emma Gonzalez and Edna Chavez brought light to the cause of the day, they also left me with an ache I have had for decades. That ache is from seeing the pain of children who go to school each day with a chronic fear and despair of feeling there is no friend for them, that they can’t find a place of acceptance, or that they will never fit into the “small circle” of those who are popular and successful. The outcasts, oddballs, misfits, malcontents, and weirdos who suffer through each day and whose spirits are forced to duck down all the time, even when there are no bullets.
Like many people, I was moved to tears today by the televised demonstrations. I ache for the hundreds of students who have been directly affected by gun violence. I ache, too, for the millions of people who are affected by the threat of such horrible acts. Fear has replaced comfort and confidence in the manner of living everyday life, and that is tragic. Most of all, though, I ache for the countless number who suffer through the dull, gray volumes of time feeling as though they have no place, no connection, no chance and no reason. There are many times when the most seriously injured are those whose wounds don’t bleed. Let us not forget them. Please.
This End Up 