One Act Of Compassion

Today, my History website mentioned that on June 8, 1972, Senator Shirley Chisholm visited Governor George Wallace after he’d been shot five times.  Yes, I remember the incident.  I was still living in Baltimore with my parents and brother.  Governor Wallace was running for President again.  He ran in 1968 and won six southern states.

He sure did.  From everything I’d heard and seen about him, he was a detestable racist, a white supremacist.  In 1968, the year RFK was assassinated, Wallace was running on an anti-segregation platform, promising to reverse all the recent desegregation.  I clearly remembered the images of him standing in the doorway to the University of Alabama to prevent black students from entering.  I found him to be ugly in appearance and sick in his soul, thoroughly disgusted.

He came to Laurel, Maryland to campaign.  Laurel was a good 30 miles or so from Baltimore.  He was in the Laurel Plaza shopping center greeting people and shaking hands.  There was a bunch of people there.  I don’t know if they were all supporters or not.  A man named Arthur Bremer shot him 5 times, paralyzing him for the rest of his life.  His campaign for the presidency ended, and Richard Nixon ended up winning the 1972 election.

Shirley Chisholm was totally different than George Wallace.  I knew that she was the first black woman to be elected to Congress.  In 1972, I knew she was a liberal while Wallace was a segregationist populist.  She represented a district in New York and then became the first woman to run for President in 1972.  She was an early childhood educator and while she served in Congress, much of her focus was on getting food and nutrition assistance for the poor.

In spite of their political and personal views, Shirley Chisholm visited George Wallace while he was recuperating in Holy Cross Hospital.  It threw me.  Why would she visit him when he believed that people of color were inferior?  It’s because she had compassion and human decency.  What happened to Wallace was horrible and she wouldn’t want something like that happen to anyone.

Wallace cried.  After he recovered, he announced he’d become born again and scaled back on his racist views.  He even supported Chisolm’s bill to give domestic workers the minimum wage.  With his support, enough of the southern legislators in Congress helped get the bill passed.

One unexpected act of compassion means so much.  

 

Mass Shootings: Live With It?

 Today is the anniversary of the Allies invasion of Normandy in 1944.  I remember the 50^th anniversary and feeling amazed by how many years had passed.  In two years, it’ll be 80 years.  I saw “The Longest Day” when I was a kid in the 60s.  I thought it was a great movie but not too long ago, when I saw it again, I was saddened at all the lives lost.  My first dh Rich and I went to see “Saving Private Ryan” when we took a weekend vacation in 1998 or 99.  I couldn’t sit through the whole movie.  It was just too realistic.  I couldn’t handle the blood and gore.

Those rifles the soldiers used then weren’t like the automatics we have today but they were heavy duty and meant to kill people.  The automatic rifles some people like aren’t meant for hunting or protection.  Those weapons are to kill a lot of people fast, inflicting devastating and mutilating damage on the human body.

This morning I read an opinion piece by one of the surviving students from the Columbine High School massacre back in 1999.  I’d heard of mass shootings before but they were usually associated with organized crime hits.  These weren’t hardened hit men.  They were misfit teens who went into their school and started shooting.  They killed themselves.   The carnage was shocking.  We were all horrified by this awful tragedy but too soon it was forgotten. It was just one of those once in a lifetime things, right?

Wrong.  This is a list of school shootings since Columbine. https://www.usnews.com/news/us/articles/2022-05-24/a-look-at-some-of-the-deadliest-us-school-shootings They just list the deadliest, which killed 169 children.  This only happens in this country.  Other countries have sensible gun laws and the number one killer of children is not gun violence.  But here, in the US, gun violence kills more kids than car accidents.  It kills more kids than cancer.  The statistic is absolutely monstrous.

Craig Nelson wrote the column about gun violence and surviving Columbine.  He was 17 years old then and recalled the trauma of friends being killed while he and other classmates hid.  Now he is the father of four children and this could likely happen again and to one of his children. 

That’s because, lately, it seems mass shootings have become the “new norm”.  You don’t know if it’ll happen at the grocery store or the movies or a clinic or a mall or a concert or a church or a parking lot or night club … you don’t know where and when the next one will happen.  It’s bad enough the Rethuglicans refuse to do anything about gun control reform.  Now there’s a new poll:  almost half of the formerly respectable Republicans think we have to just live with mass shootings.

My brain is exploding.  My brain is being overloaded with: shock, disbelief, outrage.  I think those people need to see pictures of the Alverde kids and Buffalo seniors who were killed with those vicious, deadly AR-15s.  Completely mind boggling.

Mr. Nelson had suggestions about what we can do instead of just sitting on our hands, shaking our heads.

This has to be politicized.  Those of us who are tired of children being shot up in schools and people of color being slaughtered at churches and grocery stores need to get up and use our voices.  Join a protest march.  Go to your local government council meeting.  Call your senators.  Call your representative.  Volunteer to help elect people who will be willing to make a change.  If we sit back and do nothing, it’s like condoning gun violence.

Mass shootings, the new norm?  Is that who we are?  Is that who we want to be? Check out Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mass_shootings_in_the_United_States

Mr. Nelson’s opinion piece: https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/survived-columbine-school-shooting-watched-uvalde-repeat-cycle-death-rcna31338?cid=eml_nbn_20220605&user_email=13660bfeb26f12d44f84b122ca5ed8d5f1acd1ca439a25e7fe835ee487c11d11&%243p=e_sailthru&_branch_match_id=897534115306322423&utm_medium=Email%20Sailthru&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAAzVO7WrEIBB8GvvPJH4klxaOUij3GkHXzSlnVPxI6NvX%2Figss8PszjC21lQ%2BxjFoCHiVQaU0eBdeo0ifhEuR7rgV5Xy1ub11IWb3dEH5rWV%2Ft39mIr4If%2FS5rmv4j4F4dKXantR3TC64GDorLZ%2FuREMh%2BnZoF5AWsDF6WjpWF570UhVs%2F2in8gZpxoSqUvgBj9R0ammGoAQTYiXiAc4Q8Y2H34IOG584n5ZpJnxpBfOGR6%2Fe70wsy6R31HzZGTdS7qvUjHNQM5rVzDtTYBgoKd4Vn%2FG24ypmRLnegDHD2C9Kxm%2BmJgEAAA%3D%3D

Remembering Senator Robert F. Kennedy

The History Channel website reminds me that it was this day in 1968 that Sirhan Sirhan caught up with Senator Robert F. Kennedy in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel and shot him in the head.  I came down the stairs the next morning and, just as had happened with Rev. King’s assassination, I heard the news on the morning news.  Reporters said that Senator Kennedy was still alive but in grave condition and that his pregnant wife, Ethel, was at his side.

My heart started pounding.  Not again!  I still remembered the trauma of President Kennedy’s assassination.  As I did in April, I went into the dining room where my parents were eating and mouthed to them what had happened.  They were shocked and we all went back into the living room to watch the coverage until it was time for me to leave for school.

I would say I’d become “woke” after Reverend King’s assassination and had become interested in political news.  I began following Senator Kennedy’s campaign; he was speaking to a crowd of African Americans when the news came about Rev. King.  His grief and comforting words helped people stay calm.  I liked his message.  I liked that he seemed to be for regular people, white and of color, and not just rich folks like himself.  I thought he might be able to bring the bloody war in Viet Nam to a close.  Senator Kennedy was a candidate of hope.

I prayed and prayed so hard that God would save him.  Maybe that head wound wasn’t as terrible as his brother’s had been.  Our country really needed him, please, God.  But that wound had been a lethal one and he died on June 6^th.  I was heart-broken.  I didn’t blame God; I blamed the gunman, Sirhan Sirhan.  And I was angry at the impulsive decision Senator Kennedy made to go through the kitchen instead of the way he was supposed to go.

If he had lived to become President, how different our lives would have been!

 

Shared Post Written By Uvalde Mom

 This was on my Facebook News Feed this morning.  There are hashtags at the end so maybe it originated on Twitter.

"Sharing: This was heartbreaking to read but important we ALL hear her words and feel her pain. Maybe then people will fight to get assault rifles banned. At least I hope so.

Written by one of the #Uvalde victims moms:

The chicken soup in her thermos stayed hot all day while her body grew cold.
She never had a chance to eat the baloney and cheese sandwich. I got up 10 minutes early to cut the crust off a sandwich that will never be eaten.

Should I call and cancel her dental appointment next Wednesday? Will the office automatically know? Should I still take her brother to the appointment since I already took the day off work?  Last time Carlos had one cavity and Amerie asked him what having a cavity feels like.
She will never experience having a cavity. 
She will never experience having a cavity filled.
The cavities in her body now are from bullets, and they can never be filled.

What if she had asked to use the bathroom in the hall a few minutes prior to the gunman entering the room, locking the door, and slaughtering all inside?

Was she one of the first kids in the room to die or one of the last? 
These are the things they don’t tell us.
Which of her friends did she see die before her? 
Hannah? 
Emily?
Both?
Did their blood and brains splatter across her Girl Scout uniform? 
She just earned a Fire Safety patch. What if it got ruined?
There are no patches for school shootings.

Was she practicing writing GIRAFFE the moment he walked in her classroom, barricaded the door and opened fire?
She keeps forgetting the silent “e” at the end.  We studied this past weekend, and now she doesn’t need to take the spelling test on Friday.
None of them will take the spelling test on Friday.
There will be no spelling test on Friday.
Because there is no one to give it.
And no one to take it.

These are the things I will never know:
I will never know at what age she would have started her period.
I will never know if she had wisdom teeth.
(Or if they would have come in crooked.)
I will never know who she spoke to last.  Was it the teacher?  Was it her table partner, George? She says George is always talking, even during silent reading.

Did she even scream?
She screamed the lyrics to We Don’t Talk About Bruno at 7:58 AM as she hopped out of my car in the circle drive.  She always sings the Dolores part, her sister sings Mirabel and I’m Bruno.
“And I wanted you to know that your bro loves you so
Let it in, let it out, let it rain, let it snow, let it goooooo……..”
Did the killer ever see Encanto? 
Could we have sat in the same row of seats, on the same day, munching popcorn? 
What if Amerie brushed past him in the aisle? Did she politely say, “Excuse me,” to the boy who would someday blow her eye sockets apart?

Was he chomping on bubble gum as he destroyed them all?
If so, what flavor? 
Cinnamon?
Wintergreen?

Was the radio on as he drove to massacre them?  Or did he drive in silence?
Was the sun in his eyes as he got out of the car in the parking lot? 
Did his pockets hold sunglasses or just ammunition?
These are the things I will never know.

There is laundry in the dryer that is Amerie’s.
Clothes I never need to fold again.
Clothes that are right now warmer than her body.
How will I ever be able to take them out of the dryer and where will I put them if not back in her dresser? 
I can never wash clothes in that dryer again.
It will stand silent; a tomb for her pajamas and knee socks.

Her cousin’s graduation party is next month and I already signed her name in the card.  Should I cross it out?
That will be the last card I ever sign her name to.

The dog will live longer than she will. 
The dog will be 12 next month and she will be eternally 10.

What will the school do with her backpack?
It was brand new this year and she attached her collection of keychains like cherished trophies to its zipper.
A beaded 4 leaf clover she made on St. Patty’s Day.
A red heart from a Walk-a-Thon.
A neon ice cream cone from her friend’s birthday party.
Now there will be no more keychains to attach.
No more trophies.
Surely they can’t throw it out? Would they throw them all out? 19 backpacks, full of stickered assignments and rainboots, all taken to the dumpster behind the school?  Is there even a dumpster big enough to contain all that life? 

These are the things someone else knows:
The moment the semiautomatic rifle was put into his hands--was “Bring Me a Higher Love” playing in the gun store? “Get off my Cloud” by the Rolling Stones? Maybe it was Elton John’s “Rocket Man.” 
Did the Outback Oasis salesperson hesitate as they slid him 375 rounds of ammunition?
not my problem my kids are grown and out of school
Or I don’t have kids, so I don’t have to worry about their skulls getting blown across the naptime mat
Or fingers crossed there’s a good guy with an equally powerful gun that will stop this gun if needed
Did they sense any danger or were they more focused on picking that morning’s Raisin Bran out of their teeth?

My Nana used to say, “Pay attention to what whispers, and you won’t have to when it starts screaming.”

But now I know there is a more deafening sound than children screaming.

More horrific even, than automatic rifles on a Tuesday morning.
I beg the world:
Pay attention to what’s screaming today, or be forced to endure the silence that follows.

#gunviolenceawareness
#MoreGunsIsNotTheAnswer
#BanAssaultWeapons
#WeaponsOfWar
#CiviliansDoNotNeedWeaponsOfWar
#AmericanEpidemic
#CallYourLegislators #CallAllElected
#GVP #gunviolenceprevention"

20 Years in a blink of the eye

We just celebrated our wedding anniversary.

Twenty years now and it happened in the blink of an eye.  TB and I celebrated our 20^th wedding anniversary on June 1^st.  Memories come up in my brain like a bunch of submerged floats popping to the surface.

I didn’t expect to ever remarry in spite of how Rich encouraged me to go on if he passed away.  That was when he started have arterial fibrillation in addition to his other heart issues.  He was only 40 when he died.  He was my soulmate.  How could I ever marry again when half of my heart had been amputated?

Earlier I wrote a blog entry about how I met TB.  I strongly believe that it was Rich that pushed me in TB’s direction with his whispered words: “Give him a chance.”  The part I’m talking about was toward the end of the post here https://irishcoda54.blogspot.com/2022/02/life-after-death.html

So, I reached out and contacted TB.  He lived in New Jersey; the kids and I lived on Long Island.  Not too far, not too close.  He answered and we struck up an enjoyable email friendship at first.  As we began to see how many of the same values and enjoyment of the same activities (reading, especially), we exchanged phone numbers and began to have long conversations when he got off work.

I remember how supportive he was one night when I was so worried about my son Bill.  He’d asked to go into the city with a friend for one of those cards (Pokémon or one of the others) conventions.  I was very nervous about it; he was fifteen and assured me there would be his friend’s parent going with.  Reluctantly, I said ok.  At that time, none of my kids had cell phones.  So now it’s after 11 p.m. and they’re not home yet.  TB’s soothing and comforting words helped keep me calm.  Bill arrived home safely just before midnight.  He’d had a great time.

For spring break, I decided to take the kids and go to Disney World, Sea World and Universal Studios.  I was terrified of flying and it was expensive for the four of us anyway so I decided to drive there.  TB and I thought it would be great to meet face-to-face while I was going through New Jersey.  We picked a McDonald’s just off Exit 7-something on the Turnpike.

I happened to park our van right next to his car.  I recognized him immediately.  We both were very shy, saying hello.  Then, as we walked through the lot to the restaurant, I took his hand in mine and then everything was fine.  We relaxed and began chatting away just as we did on the phone.  I’d told the kids that I’d made friends with TB after one of our phone conversations so they were polite but reserved with him.

We spent about 2 hours at that McDonald’s!  We all walked together back to our cars.  TB reached into his and brought out a stuffed bear with angel wings.  It was for our safety to Florida and back.  We kissed and sort of “knew” then that it was going to work out for us.

Both of us had lost our spouses.  We had both known a great, rare love and that you just don’t find that every day.  We decided not to wait to get married.  At first, we were just going to go to a justice of the peace but TB’s mom got wind of it and wanted us to have a wedding with family.  We didn’t want or need a big ceremony and TB’s good friend, Paul Chapman, was a minister.

There was a charming little gazebo in New Egypt, which is where TB lived.  We arranged to get married there and announced the date we’d chosen: June 1, 2002.  We announced our plans on the internet and were happily surprised by the love and support from family and friends.  We had dinner with Paul and his wife a few weeks before the wedding.  He counseled us and was happy to officiate.

I think what meant to be most was the fact that Rich’s father and wife drove from their home in Pennsylvania to our wedding.  Fred said to me that he understood what it was like, and I knew it to be true.  Alberta was his second wife.  His first wife, Rich’s mother, had been killed in a tragic car accident.  Some family and friends accepted his remarriage from the get-go; others hadn’t.

Another surprise was a friend and her family showing up from Pittsburgh, PA.  We were thrilled they made the effort to come to New Jersey.  Also present were my kids, TB’s adult daughters Michele (and family) and Linda with her boyfriend Kennan, Lucille (TB’s mom), TB’s brother Tim, a few other friends, another pastor TB knew well, and other passers-by.  We had a really nice reception at Lucille’s home.  It turned out to be a perfect day.

The last 20 years haven’t all been smooth and easy.  We’ve had some really rocky times blending our families, keeping our heads above water when TB got hurt on the job and couldn’t work anymore, health challenges, deaths in the families, and the past six-year national horror show.  We’ve had arguments like any couple will.  Love and respect are the glues that held us together.

He enjoys working with his hands and has his own wood shop at the back of the house.  I love to write and catch up with friends and family on Facebook.  We almost the same values and interests.  We are both avid readers.  We both enjoy watching series together on Netflix or Hulu.  We have the same goals.

We both love cats although he likes to say I “converted” him.

So, we’ve been married 20 years now.  It seems like yesterday; it feels like we were always together.  I thank God and Rich and TB’s Audrey for pulling this off.