Us and Them

A friend of mine who has been working with Sandy Hook Promise, an organization started by parents whose children were taken from them through a horrific act, brought the group to our Village Fair recently.

It is a hard thing for me to talk about because I cannot imagine the horror of that day without crying and looking for my own children.  For those parents it will always be Us, we who can hug and kiss and scold and raise our children, and Them those parents who in an instant of such incomprehensible evil had their children brutally killed.  Their children - many still in the single digit ages. I will never pretend to understand their pain or any sort of connection to them on the level of pain that this must cause always. I can relate to them as a parent and as a human being in being horrified that this happened at all.

We hear a lot about gun violence - we hear the people shouting at one another.  We hear about how there should be stricter laws as others shout that guns do not kill people (umm actually they do they are used by people).  We hear about 2nd amendment rights.  We hear a lot of chatter pro and con but I feel like many of us have stopped listening.

Listening to the vast silence of the halls of every school where lives were lost. Listening to the crying where laughter used to be.  Do we really hear the voices crying out as 74 - 74!!!!! - school shootings have happened since Newtown???? Or has it become just background noise that we shrug at, we scowl at and do not stop to listen to.

We owe our children our full attention - and our example against bullying. Bullying that comes in the form of the NRA with their interests and funding from gun makers and not even listening to their members who overwhelmingly believe in laws that ensure that guns are not sold without background checks. We owe Our logic - really who needs an automatic weapon - have said it once will say it again WHAT YOU HUNTING with that???? 

One person, and there are many ones of us that make a loud voice, can vote at the local level where it can actually be heard by the politicians.  We can write and write and not let these bullies with their influence quiet us down because our children our screaming - they are screaming in their sleep from nightmares of these images, they are screaming because they are afraid and most of all they are screaming for us to be the people they have come to expect of us - the people that do all we can to make it safe for them. 

I have a hard time spending time or even reading the Sandy Hook Promise emails - because those parents have a pain no parent should have and I can sympathize but I cannot feel their pain as they do and for that I am grateful to have the ability to hug and love and scream occasionally at my children. 

It will be alway be Us and Them - but We can all do something.  Let's start with asking the media to stop publishing any info on the shooter, they do not deserve the coverage.  Let's start with not judging and working to help create policies on mental health issues.  Most of all let's scream with one voice that ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!! Your 2nd amendment right cannot trump our children's rights to live without gun violence - these school shootings were done w legally bought guns since Columbine - so for those of you who have guns put them away and take care of the children in your own homes, there may be issues to be dealt with - they too are screaming for help - thank you to those who are listening.

http://action.sandyhookpromise.org/ - if you are interested it is time for us to be louder than the quiet passing of funds to politicians who forget that our government is of the people by the people for the people - no where in there is it for the benefit of a few.