March For Our Lives

For the record…

I’ve never fired a gun.

I’ve never been shot.

I don’t know anyone that has been shot but some of my former students were impacted by gun violence.

I used to worry every morning when the bus arrived to take John, Will and Emma to school – I didn’t know the bus driver and yet I trusted him/her to get my children to school safely.  For me that was a leap of faith.

I’ve worked in schools for the past 34 years and never worried about my safety or the safety of my colleagues and students.

It’s different now.

Saturday was quite a day.  Sunny but very cold. Uplifting but sad.  Will and I took part in the Syracuse March For Our Lives.  I was happy to be participating. I was glad to “do my part” and happy to experience it with someone I love.  However, one question kept nagging at me throughout – Why? Why do I feel the need to be here? Why do people object to common sense gun reform?  After all, the majority of people favor gun reform and yet very little gets done by our political leaders.

The event was organized by high school students – passionate, organized, determined, angry high school students.  I am inspired by them and I will never underestimate young people again. It is upsetting to hear older people discount the opinions of young people.  We’ve all heard it maybe thought it, “what do they know, they haven’t lived yet!” That notion is out the window because the young people that spoke to the crowd on Saturday have lived and have experienced things that I can only imagine – active shooter drills, lockdown drills, friends, family members and classmates lost to gun violence.  Their opinions matter and their demands for change deserve to be heard. One of the speakers was a high school senior at Sandy Hook High School 5 years ago. She told the story of being in lock down because there was an active shooter at the elementary school. Her 5 year old sister was in the building while the violence was happening. The older sister was frantic because she could not protect her younger sibling.  Fortunately the younger sister was not harmed and the two were reunited. “Not harmed” is a bit misleading because internal psychological injuries aren’t always visible. The older sister described herself as “a mess” in the aftermath of the shooting. Guess who comforted her? Guess who told her that everything was going to be OK? That’s right, the 5 year old!

What do I do now?  Marching is easy but change can be messy.  I plan to be more actively engaged. I plan to donate my time and energy to supporting candidates dedicated to making things better for all people.  I will make informed votes.

Things are different now.  The children will lead us and I’m OK with that.

3/27/18

David