on guns and gutlessness

Because of someone's negligence, my child fell at school and broke his hip. It caused him excruciating pain. He had to have surgery. His supple thigh was cut open. His muscles splayed. The pieces of his broken femur were set in place, drilled and fixed with screws. He was stitched up and bandaged. My son spent five weeks mostly in bed recovering. His fall could and should have been prevented. Even so, I'm grateful that my child is healing and smiling and walking again. More to the point, my child is alive and kicking unlike the victims of countless mass shootings. I grieve for them.

What the hell is wrong with this nation? This place of so-called rugged individualists ("so-called" because exactly no one achieves anything by themselves) who think their right to own and brandish (or conceal) guns—even high-capacity assault weapons—eclipses the rights of others to keep themselves and their children safe from harm in public spaces and in homes. What the hell is wrong with these so-called leaders ("so-called" because they don't lead if it risks crossing the NRA)? Instead, in the shadow of these tragedies they deflect and deny any notion that guns are a main source of the problem. What is it about the Second Amendment's words, "A well-regulated militia" that these cowardly, power-hungry fetishists don't understand? Originalists be damned for your hypocrisy. Where did some Americans' selfishly reckless "me, me, me" and "eff your feelings" attitudes come from? Ignorance? Hate? Narcissism? Entitlement? Fear of becoming obsolete? All of the above? There have been so many lives lost to Covid and guns, but it didn't—doesn't—have to be this way. The spurning of common sense gun safety legislation is outrageous. Unforgivable, really. Lives could have been and can be saved.

When I consider the grieving parents of the murdered children, I think of Walt Whitman's, Vigil Strange I Kept On the Field One Night, in which he writes about a father's vigil for his fallen soldier son who, as he describes, was "a boy of responding kisses, (never again on earth responding.)" I read that one little girl at Robb Elementary School was brave and resourceful enough to smear herself with her dead friend's blood so she'd appear dead to the shooter. Compare her courageous actions to conservative legislators who, despite these grisly scenes which have become so frequent, are paralyzed by their gutlessness and greed.

I mourn for the families and friends of children and adults gunned down in schools, theaters, concert venues, grocers, places of worship. It's painfully clear that thoughts and prayers do nothing to stop the carnage. Neither, it seems, do the 393 million guns Americans hoard with the false notion they are somehow safer owning one (or more) despite the studies showing that owning guns increases risk of harm or death. And, there is no merciful god to step in and stop the bloodshed. There's only nature, including human nature, which fails so miserably when fear, hate, greed and lust for power displace peace, love, understanding and brotherhood. It's sickening to watch legislators sit idly by and, in their flabby inaction, seem content to continue watching massacres happen. "Guns don't kill people," they exclaim. I'd like to hear them explain why guns are prohibited at the annual meeting of the NRA—evidence of their hypocrisy and deceit; they know it'd be dangerous. They have the blood of innocent children on their hands, a stain they can never wash away.

And so, at times like these, when mothers and fathers are grieving the senseless murder of their children, I think of my boy who is often out of sorts. My boy who regularly feels miserable. My boy who, like today, still seizes and in the wake of the attacks struggles to breathe. I've seen him look, too often, glassy-eyed and ashen as if the life had been snuffed out of him. But today he is here beside me, and for that I am most grateful; he is still a boy of responding kisses.

For the sake of our children, I hope folks do away with their guns and gutlessness, their unfounded, erroneous, harmful notions.

In the wake of this morning's seizure

a call to disarm

From the top of the hill in our handicap parking space next to the church, we could see the crowd gathering around the gazebo. Folks had taken the parade route, marching from the far side of the green bridge that crosses the river dividing our town from its neighbor. Hundreds had gathered, some of them in puffy jackets, scarves and hats, young and old, many holding handmade signs in honor of the cause. A handful of the signs read:

I want to read books not eulogies.

Disarm Hate.

School is for learning, not for lockdowns.

What part of "assault rifle" do you not understand?

End the silence, stop the violence.

From the start, Calvin was thankfully compliant, holding hands with me and Lauren as we walked down a stretch of road he'd never travelled along by foot. When we reached the crowd, however, there was little room to move, prompting Calvin to attempt dropping to the ground; I had to quickly find a place for us to sit down. Squeezing between onlookers, we inched ourselves awkwardly down a small hill still covered in snow, eventually making our way over to the gazebo. There we sat, off to the side on one of the bottom steps near an elderly woman resting there, a nubby scarf wrapped around her head. To keep Calvin calm and in one place I offered him a snack, wiping his face between bites of fruit and sips of juice. From our perch, we could see the entire crowd whose somber faces were fixed on the stage watching students read brief eulogies of the seventeen victims of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in Parkland, Florida last Valentine's Day. Under white skies, many of us wept.

Calvin was as patient as I could expect; he remained seated long enough for me to hear a few of the students' speeches condemning gun violence and vowing to vote out legislators bound to the NRA and unwilling to back gun-safety measures. Before we got up to leave, the woman seated next to us, who told us her name is Virginia, asked if Calvin is my only child. I replied, yes, explaining that was both good and bad. She looked as if she might cry. At that moment, I wondered how many of the kids killed in school massacres were their parents' only children and, because of Calvin's grave disabilities and chronic illness, I could begin—if only slightly—to imagine those parents' loss.

As Calvin and I skirted the crowd I spotted Lauren standing at the side of the road with a friend, both of them wielding signs for passing drivers to see. When we reached them, a middle-aged driver slowed his car to a stop, rolled down his passenger-side window and began shouting at us. His face became red and spittle flew from his mouth. With two fingers raised, he angrily defended what I assume he thinks are his unfettered second amendment rights, the twisted notion that the words "well-regulated militia" somehow guarantee his absolute right to own firearms, no questions asked.

On the drive home I remembered dropping Calvin off at school last Friday, noticing that the large windows of his street-side classroom were no longer papered over. The only remnant of their previous sheathing is a big and beautiful brown-paper tree, its trunk sturdy, its branches spreading wide and free. In seeing that the paper shroud had been removed, I felt grateful knowing that these terrorists and would-be terrorists—because their young, White, Christian, suburban, love-stricken or lonely or troubled souls should not exempt them from being labeled terrorists—don't have a stranglehold on our community or on our collective call to disarm.

freedom to move

I am you. —Anonymous

Never apologize for being human. —James, Florida

We love you and feel your long days and sleepless nights. —Barbara

Be well and know I do not send prayers, I send Sistah Strength from my tiny little heart to yours. —Tammy, Virgin Islands

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't even like anyone who would win a Miss Congeniality contest. —Lorry, Maine

Thank you for being real. —Nancy

These were just some of the thoughtful responses to my last blog post titled, my apologies. Several readers couldn't make sense of why I penned such sentiments to the world. The letter of apology was a version of one I had written to a few individuals at Calvin's school, expressing regret for some sleep-deprived, emotionally-spent irritability I had displayed, in part because of a newly installed, apparently malfunctioning security-door system at Calvin's school meant to limit access, ostensibly of any potential school shooters.

Last Wednesday, I'd taken Calvin to school a couple of hours late after he had suffered his now-weekly grand mal seizure at three the same morning. In my exhaustion, having not slept since then, I was easily vexed after finding out the junior high's new entry button didn't seem to be working. Frustrated, Calvin and I had to wait outside in the cold, unnoticed (Calvin is not the greatest at standing still; because of the epilepsy drugs, his body needs to move.) When I was informed that I was, purportedly, the only one having a problem with the system, I became further irritated. Then, when a kind and well-intentioned person suggested she show me how to press the button correctly (it's pretty darn straight forward; it's a button ... you press it) I grew more perturbed. These events—the seizure, the sleep deprivation, the button glitch—were probably what pushed me over the edge of congeniality. Having already been distressed by the recent papering-over of the nice large windows in Calvin's street-side classroom, I went on to lament the tragedy that some boys and men in this nation are troubled to the point that they shoot up churchgoers and schoolchildren. In my mind, what makes matters worse is the notion that teachers be armed, an idea promoted mostly by those with a twisted interpretation of the Second Amendment—that we all have a right to own semiautomatic weapons, high-speed and armor-piercing ammunition—and those who think the answer to more gun injuries and deaths is to have more guns.

At a dinner with friends on Saturday night I shared my frustration about the papering-over of Calvin's classroom windows. I stressed the fact that our kids don't get enough of the outdoors, much less having the sight of trees and sky blocked out at school. Besides, the vast majority of children who are hurt and killed by guns, I learned recently, are not shot in school massacres. Papering over their windows, in my mind, is akin to letting these terrorists and would-be terrorists win; Parisians and Barcelonians don't avoid going to markets, cafes and concerts in the wake of mass shootings, because they want to deprive terrorists of the power to curb their freedom to move.

The image of countless armed guards and gun-packing teachers, and the papering over of school windows brings to mind prisons. Will we do away with outdoor recess for elementary school kids, too? What happens when guns discharge in the classroom accidentally? We all know they do. What if an armed school teacher feels "threatened" by a student? I've no doubt that the presence of more guns in schools will lead to senseless harm and death, predominantly of children of color. One must simply look at statistics, at the legions of Black schoolchildren who are disproportionately and more harshly punished than others, and at the scores of unarmed and innocent Black men, women and children who are gunned down by police while their armed White countrymen are handled with kid gloves; we know that too many White folks, whether consciously or not, wrongly see Black people—even children—as bad, dangerous and criminal.

I think back to those moments at Calvin's school, to when I was called back in because his ed-techs thought he might have suffered a partial complex seizure, to when the principal kindly re-introduced himself to a haggard, exasperated me, to when the door alarm problem was deemed mine to own. In the wake of the events, I wish we didn't have the tendency to jump to conclusions. I wish we weren't driven by fear. I wish there weren't fearmongers and liars and gluttons and powermongers, misogynists, bigots, bullies, despots and creeps to prey upon our goodness and our failings. I wish teachers were equipped with higher salaries, with adequate supplies, and with smaller classes to address the needs of neglected students who might otherwise want to do harm.

I saw a meme recently, one that cleverly and simply debunks the favorite gun-rights' argument, "guns don't kill people; people kill people." The meme reads:

If guns don't kill people, they don't protect people either.

Makes complete sense to me.

I hope people begin to understand the statistically significant fact that they and their loved ones are less safe in homes where guns are kept. I hope folks turn in their guns so we can melt them down. I hope soon we can tear down the brown paper that makes walls out of windows and prisons out of our children's schools. My son already lives in a prison of body and mind that limits his, and our, precious freedom to move.

Learn some facts about school shootings here.

Photo by Michael Kolster

changes

It couldn't have been clearer to me that Calvin would have a seizure by this morning. In his own way, he tells me. I just have to watch and listen. Yesterday, he showed nearly all of the usual, and some not-as-usual, harbingers: bloody nose, whininess, major finger snapping and other repetitive behaviors, pacing, warm hands, uber-rashy butt, agitation, restlessness, intensity, detachment.

At five a.m. it came. Perhaps the extra doses of concentrated THCA cannabis oil just past midnight and at three o'clock impeded its arrival. As I spooned with him after the seizure, I felt how calm his body was, noting the absence of what I call aftershocks—shivering and shudders which often occur in the wake of grand mal seizures. I had no doubt THCA had something to do with his serenity.

Mostly awake since three and therefore exhausted, I still had a hard time relaxing my mind. Lying there, again I considered the world. I feel it going through its own convulsions, having more than its share of anger, hatred and greed, its racists, abusers, tyrants and liars bent on destroying humanity at nearly any cost, lusting for power through intrigue, attempting to avoid capture. What drives these men to such extremes, these gun-toting terrorists, abusers, trolls and bots, these conspiracy theorists, these despots and deceitful oligarchs? Meanwhile, in my arms lies one of the purest souls on earth, a boy who inspires love and compassion, requires my mindfulness and who, though he tries my patience at times, makes me want to live simply and be a better person every day.

Yesterday, when reading about the Marjory Stoneman Douglas high school students traveling to the Florida state capital to express their desire for the legislature to pass stricter gun control laws, I thought about Calvin. I imagined him being crammed into a closet with twenty others his age, little room to breathe, waiting silently for ninety minutes until the shooter fled the scene. I imagined Calvin—if he were a typical kid—fearing for his life, texting us, being riddled with bullets or sobbing when finally set free. I imagine him, later, boarding a bus with his classmates to march on state capitals and Washington DC demanding changes to gun policy. He'd be that kid. He'd change the world. No doubt he has, in his own way, inspired such things in others and in me.

A former teacher—one who has never met Calvin nor could comprehend the depth of his disability, who had no children of his own much less a non-verbal, incontinent, uncoordinated, delayed, epileptic one—once asked me why I named my blog Calvin's Story, or rather, why I didn't write more often from my son's perspective since it bears his name. I recall being slightly irked and thinking, perhaps even saying to him, that Calvin informs my world, and since he lacks the ability to speak, I must lend my voice to tell his story—which, because we are so inextricably linked, is ours—the one he might have told if he had been born normal. In short, I have to dream. I revisit that question from time to time, checking in with myself to ensure I am doing justice to Calvin's unusual and complicated childhood experience, exploring notions of my own with regard to him hoping I can extract some meaning from it—which is not to say I am searching for answers as to why he was born so afflicted. (Shit just happens, with no inherent reason, no purpose. Prayers prove useless, the absence of God in schools a lame excuse for mass shootings; pedophile priests still lurk in churches.)

This morning, I considered our children's truths and stories as told by themselves and their parents when I heard a former GOP congressman expressing doubt that the teenagers organizing a nationwide rally against guns—thinking the students incapable because of their youth—are doing so of their own volition. Instead, he suggested that they are mere pawns of leftist organizations. Clearly the response was from someone too detached to understand young, informed, impassioned minds, or too partisan, ignorant or cowardly to think, appear or admit otherwise. His lame statement led me to recall the David Bowie lyric I read yesterday from his song Changes:

And these children that you spit on, as they try to change their worlds, are immune to your consultations, they're quite aware of what they're going through.

I went on to ponder the right-wing conspiracy theorists who've shamefully suggested that the Florida school shooting, along with the Sandy Hook massacre, was a government ruse and that the students are actors. I wonder what in the hell these losers, jerks and trolls want to do to the virtuousness of the world. I can only hope, and work, to squash them all and liberate the truth, and soon.

And so, as my son spasms, so does the world. But there are elixirs. There is cannabis to fight seizures, there are fathers to soothe and mothers to spoon, there are parents and educators teaching their kids honesty and virtue even in—and perhaps owing to—the absence of god in schools, because it is very simply the right thing to do. There is love to conquer hate, knowledge to erase ignorance, truth and fact to crush lies and rumors, compassion to smash fearmongers, misers and fools, virtue to rule over vice, and the voices, bodies and ballots of youth to enlighten, change and lead us, to liberate and save a convulsing world.

gun-shy

My child would not know when or where to run and hide. He could not be kept quiet. He could not plead for mercy from the shooter to spare his life. He could not tackle an aggressor, shield a friend, close and lock a door, flee outside.

I ponder these terrorists, most of them white and male—extremists, racists, bigot, xenophobes—many, perhaps, with unstable minds. I dread the notion of a similar tragedy happening in my town, at my son's school where he'd be an easy target, easily sought out, easily found, easily gunned down.

No doubt the millions of thoughts and prayers have done nothing to prevent these tragedies, these mass shootings by angry boys and men who wield AK-15s. Perhaps it's true, to some degree, mental health is a problem, but insane people live in every corner of the world while our nation is an outlier when it comes to massacres and other deaths with guns.

Many conservatives doubt any measure can prevent mass shootings from occurring, save arming everyone. The fact is doing nothing ensures the epidemic perseveres. We've witnessed that truth too many times.

The second amendment was not intended to protect one's right to bear arms for sport or self protection. It was meant to form a well-regulated militia. Read the words. We should be gun-shy. We ought to stop fetishizing guns. We must reject the unfounded fear of others, of people different from ourselves. We must not yield to paranoia. We must not hold the perceived right to bear arms in higher regard than the right of innocents to their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness. We must change policy to reflect those values, to protect our children.

In this nation, too many people take their lives with guns. Too many toddlers shoot themselves, their siblings, parents, friends. Too many women are shot by abusive partners. Too many others are shot accidentally. We must stop this madness, change our nation's unhinged thirst for firearms. We should not think it's cool to own a gun.

But I feel a sea change coming—a blue tsunami—spawned by the wise, progressive youth in our nation. No doubt they'll be reshaping culture, climate and policy, and will curb the appeal and sale and use of guns.

Calvin years ago.

twenty-six: remembering sandy hook

Stepping
into a seaside childhood morning
—only colder—
Wind whipping,
Moist and grey and brisk,
Rudy by my side.

Muddy
gravel underfoot,
Bits of sandy ice. A soggy cigarette butt.
The chapel bell begins to ring.
I stop to listen,
and count.

Twenty-six.
My head hangs low
and sorry,
Straining to hear each faint toll
amid the hiss of traffic
rushing by.

The fields,
A semi-frozen marshland.
My ribs lace up,
Wind whisks away each breath,
I begin to sob into shallow
glass puddles.

A sudden squall
evokes a school of hushing voices.
The tops of watchful trees
Standing tall and firm,
yet swaying
Nonetheless.

Silent forest.
Distant barking dogs.
A murder of crows looks on.
Thwap, thwap, these rubber boots against
Bare calves
Sting.

The skies
are silver, lead and low.
Shivering limbs set free cool droplets
like tears upon my face,
One for each child lost we must remember.
 Twenty-six.

In loving memory of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting victims. 

photo by Michael Kolster

(gun) senseless

senseless: no doubt, my disabled child and his missing white matter, his rampant seizures, his drug side effects, his suffering, the senseless loss of what might have been a normal life for us.

senseless, too: lost lives. murdered child. automatic fire. gunman punching out windows. shooting into crowds. bullets flying. innocents ravaged. ambulance rides. bloody emergency rooms. NRA sham. government bribes. impotent legislators. cowards. disingenuous, derelict representatives. greed. thirst for power. reckless defenses of our second amendment. motherless child. childless father. wifeless husband. widowed bride. hazardous propaganda. false freedoms. risky inaction. senseless weaponry fetishized. our first amendment rights defied.

Bang Bang (I cannot second your amendment) by Holly Ballard Martz

unfair world

As I syringe the milky medicine into my son’s mouth, he shivers like a fledgling being fed. But these are tremors, remnants of the grand mal seizure that ripped me out of bed just before six a.m. At once, I understand why he had such a hard day yesterday—shrieking, finger snapping, grinding his teeth, banging his head, then waking at midnight crying, wanting me close, his knees tucked into his little bird chest, his arms around my neck.

In bed next to him, my mind wanders from one thing to another. My hand draped across Calvin’s lap, an image comes to me of little six-year-old Jacob Hall lying in his hospital bed, his face discolored and puffy after suffering a bullet in his thigh which drained too much blood from his head. In the photograph, his father, who from behind reminds me a little of Calvin's dad, leans in to kiss him one last time, his mother curls up next to him as her son breathes his final breath.

And then, in the darkness of Calvin's room, his legs propped on mine, my mind begins to reel.

I think of the children of Aleppo. I see them scavenge daily for scraps of food, scamper to find water, wither without their meds. I see them in photos—stone-dust covered—having perished in their mothers’ arms, innocent victims of the ceaseless shelling not far from southern Turkey where a lifetime ago I once happily tread. Then I imagine my own mother who raised six kids. She must have felt as trapped as I sometimes, having traveled solo to another continent for months when she was barely twenty. And yet, her children were perhaps her most cherished accomplishment or gift. Then I remember the brick ranch home I grew up in, the room in which my mother slept, the slouchy bed on which I sat and brushed her hair and in which I sometimes slept, my little aching legs slung over her ample hips. Through the purple japanese maple and cloud of cherry blossoms I can still imagine Seattle glinting in the sunset. I wonder how my mother felt, stuck in a kitchen, wrapped in an apron, unable to meet that gleaming horizon of possibility she once had. She lost two of her sons in any event, not to war or sickness, not even death, but perhaps to some kind of neglect. And then I think again of little Jacob Hall and his parents, of the senselessness of pain and hurt in this world of greedy man-wars over land, over money, over bodies, over oil, over gods, over medicine.

I turn to Calvin, my lips and breath brushing his forehead, and whisper something I’ve denied saying for years.

“Life is unfair,” this mother finally said.

Photo by Michael Kolster

hold fast

In memory of nine-year-old Christina Taylor Green, Gabrielle Giffords, and six others murdered five years ago today by a gunman shooting into a crowd. Christina Taylor Green was my close friend's goddaughter, and her mother, Roxanna, had been a bridesmaid with me. Christina's parents, having become avid gun control advocates since their daughter's murder, attended President Obama's recent gun control announcement. Today, my thoughts are with them, and the thousands of parents in this country who have lost their children to gun violence.

Snow was falling silently when the grim news came.
Woman shot, six others dead—
one child.
Tears of sorrow filled our eyes.
 
Hold fast.
 
She, younger than I, is lost in a coma.
Lost to her children, lost to her husband,
suspended in some cold inner space
we can never know.

 They try to embrace but cannot reach her, not now.
She is somewhere else.
 
Hold fast.
 
What about the girl?
Her happy presence replaced by emptiness–
silent and desolate.
A hollowness in her mother and
father’s palms—in the core of their beings.
Memories endure of stroking her

 chestnut hair, of her smile,
of tenderly cupping her face in their hands.
Echoes of her sweet voice remain.
 
Hold fast.
 
I have my spouse and I have my child,
all touching in our own warm bed,
my arms wrapped around my boy,
his around my neck, our hearts beating together.
His sweet breath brushes my face,
his supple legs curl up as
little feet knead my belly.
 
I Hold fast.

Christina Taylor Green, September 11, 2001 - January 8, 2011