Rage, Grief, and Guns
Only anger and tears remain
I missed my Tuesday newsletter deadline this week. I knew it was coming, but with the 3-day weekend, I just kind of spaced. Let’s just chalk it up to a holiday weekend and assume that I had always planned to send this out late!
I’ve had about six different starts to this post this week. I’d planned to write about Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy’s public health advisory on the mental health and well-being of parents, but couldn’t get my thoughts together in a way that was cohesive enough—I need a little bit more time with that one before I publish an essay about it.
Then, this morning, while I was doing some thrifting at one of the best thrift stores I’ve ever been to, news broke of yet. another. horrific. deadly. school. shooting. This time in Georgia. I am absolutely out of empathy for those who, as
says, are “allowing our children to be sacrificed on the altar of our firearm worship.” I am left only with grief and rage.
Firearms are the leading cause of death for children and adolescents.1
And so, here’s all I have for today…
Lake Trip
You eat raisins straight out of the bag during the hour-and-a-half car ride. You keep placing them in my hands, which I absentmindedly eat, even though I’m not even sure I like raisins anymore. I offer you those salty snap pea snacks Dada gets from Costco. You giggle every time you shake your head and say, “Nah.” I think about what snacks you might be eating if an active shooter attacks your classroom. Will it be goldfish or canned pineapple?
The drive is finally over. We park at the beach in Ludington. You are fussy and want out of your car seat (now!). You are so excited to see Nana and Papa. I take off your shoes, and we amble down the warm sand to the water. You stand there, looking at the other boy about your age playing in the water just a few feet away. You aren’t so sure about going any further. You say, “Up!” and touch your feet awkwardly, trying to wipe the sand from your heels. You don’t like the way the wet sand feels on your toes. I think about the parents who’ve had to identify their dead children only by the shoes on their feet because their bodies have been so completely obliterated by the assault weapon used in their murder.2
We go to the playground, and you scale the climbing wall like an American Ninja Warrior in Training. We check into the vacation rental, and you run through every room like it’s the first time you’ve ever been inside a house. You climb the early 20th century staircase with the mastery of someone who surely learned to walk more than 2 months ago. Your grandparents give you a busy board they made from scratch. You pick up the bricked cell phone hanging from the cord and say, “Ehro!” It’s a word I found out you knew how to say only a few days ago when we stopped by the neighborhood bookstore after daycare pickup, and you picked up the toy phone in the kids’ area like you’d known how to do it forever. I think about the children who texted their parents today (and on so many other tragic days before) that there was a shooter in their classroom. They say it’s not a joke. They say they’re scared. Terrified. They say someone is dead in their classroom. They say, “I love you.”3
I give you a bath in the claw foot tub. I add some extra bubbles because you’re obsessed with them lately. You drink some bath water using one of the sand toys we brought upstairs. Nana pulls you out and wraps you in your favorite elephant towel and you lay your head on her shoulder for a minute or two. I snap a photo and send it to Dada, who is fishing with Papa. I slip you into those bamboo jammies I like so much and give you a cup of milk. Nana and I take turns reading books. You ask to read the one about the baby cow again. I rock you to sleep using
’s “Taylor Swift Method” Playlist because I think it might work, and you’ve been sad at bedtime over the last few weeks. You’re asleep by “August.” I kiss your sweet, soft forehead and lay you down in the travel crib. I zip up the Slumberpod. I think about the parents who won’t get to kiss their kids goodnight tonight. Or ever again.I weep.
There have been 385 mass shootings in 2024.4 I have no inspiring platitudes to offer here. I’m simply a mom, who witnessed the horror of Columbine at 11 years old, and 25 years later has only a broken heart and a gasping plea to please use your vote in 61 days to vote for Democratic candidates up, down, and sideways across the ballot who will bend political will and DO SOMETHING to end this.
is right—it doesn’t have to be this way.For other thoughtful, rageful posts on the insidious scourge of guns, and particularly school shootings, in this country, I’m linking some favorite pieces and poems below.
❤️If you enjoyed this post, please click the “like” button at the bottom - it helps others discover my content!
It has to stop and we have to do that with our vote.
This made me weep too, Ellen. What a powerful and moving piece. I hope our politicians and the parents of those that have been lost to gun violence have a chance to read this, too. Thank you for being so brave to write and share these thoughts.