Gun Violence Awareness Day, June 2

Today, June 1, is the 18th anniversary of my mother’s death.  My mother was my soul instructor, never mind soul mate. That is one of the reasons I will attend a Wear Orange event tomorrow on June 2nd.  I am my mother’s only daughter and feel obligated to live up to her sacrifices, as a living, breathing channel of her love.  I feel the need to continue the relationship by being the kind of human being she wanted me to be.

She told me that she dreamt me.  I was a little girl, asking little girl questions. I must have been a pest, but she never made me feel that way. Do you remember any of the talks you had with your mother when you were filled with innocence and trust?

“What was it like for you, when I was a baby? How did you feel? What is it like to have a baby inside you?”

She said she saw me, my face, long before I ever came along in a dream.  She had all these boys and no girls, but there I was, a fat faced baldy somewhere in her future.

I think about my innocence and her giving me this gift.  I hold onto this memory and wonder about the Sandy Hook victims.  Innocence lost can never be found anew.  And how much sorrow can be held in the human heart?  What is the breaking point of a person?  What lovely little moments blessed the parents, grandparents and siblings, children and grandchildren that they may be able to hold onto, to comfort them in their ongoing grief.  I hope the smallest, tiniest moments can shine through to uplift them. 

Today, in irony or pitiful non-coincidence, there is another shooting at UCLA. The victim was a professor, killed by one of his students.  Tomorrow marks what would have been the 19th birthday of Hadiya Pendleton, a victim of gun violence from Chicago who had actually performed for President Obama.  Her friends were the ones that started the Wear Orange slogan, their thinking being that they may have to wear orange vests like hunters, just to avoid being shot.  I guess it’s hunting season in Chicago. 

I want the families to know that people like myself are committed because of their loss, which as unspeakable as it is, gives meaning beyond that seen to the unseen. 

I plan on showing up because of the faces that haunt me from Sandy Hook,the missed and once loved faces from cities and colleges, from churches and movie houses. I will march because I am Pappy’s daughter.  I want to do whatever I can and use my voice against America's gun violence. I want to do something, anything, to try to prevent more tragedies because at this point it is about everyone, anyone.

To not act, is to act.
To not speak, is to speak.