Uvalde.

I’m not good with numbers.

It’s never been my strength… but 19 (NINETEEN) second, third, and fourth graders — and a teacher —and a grandma… is too many.

Too many to die on the magical cusp of summer.

And there has to be some gray space that we as parents and grandparents and humans can meet? Just forget left and right. Just for now. For this.

Can we agree on the importance of the 2nd amendment? And also agree that elementary kids shouldn’t leave school in body bags? Can we agree that their families shouldn’t have to provide DNA to identify their bodies?

And I hear a lot of ugly things about teachers lately. I’m in six schools. I only see exhausted educators who love those kids and if put in that situation would do anything to keep those kids alive.
Your kids alive.
I know.
I’m one of them.

I’ve ran the scenarios in my head. For every space I work in. What doors to send them out. Where we would hide. What would I throw.
We all do.

One year at inservice- we opened the year with “Stop the Bleed,” “Suicide Prevention,” and “ALICE” training. ALICE is a strategy for dealing with active shooters.
All good info.
All for public school teachers in a South Dakota district.
All before lunch on the first day of in-service.
I don’t have answers. That’s not my job.

I know we can’t stop them all.
But I know other countries are doing a lot better.
At keeping kids and grocery shoppers and church-goers alive.

I know hypothetically politicians are supposed to find the best outcome, or negotiate to it… but I also know they mostly become entrenched and bought by special interests and instead write speeches and eulogies… send thoughts and prayers.

And I know most of us voters picked a side and some pretty talking points to throw like grenades a long, long time ago.

And most won’t even read this.
Or at least this far.

Most started writing a cliche-ridden comment two paragraphs ago.
But if you are still reading:

Stick with me.

Kids are tucked in morgues tonight.
Thursday was supposed to be the gateway to summer.
So. Stop.

And be human first.
And ask if we can compromise to something better for them.
For the Texas kids now caught in perpetual spring. Who won’t see another summer.

And I’m not trying to take away your guns.
Yes, we do need to fix the explosive cocktail of divisive culture, bitter politics, mental health, and general apathy toward human life that so often sets these shooters off.
But we can maybe also talk about background checks. And gun show loopholes. Too.

But figuring this out isn’t my job. I’m just a mom and a teacher- who probably has hard questions to answer tomorrow. At home and at school.

Who won’t sleep well tonight.

Because it’s hard to explain to smart kids how the grownups in the greatest country in the world… won’t even have a real conversation about how to do a better job of keeping them alive.

Hug your kids.

And know every teacher you are sending them to tomorrow- is reviewing active shooter drills as they try to go to sleep.

Goodnight America.

Ukraine

(originally published 2/24/22)

Last night in an emergency meeting of the UN, Ukraine's Sergiy Kyslytsya stared down his Russian counterpart: There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell, ambassador.

I’ve watched the short exchange no less than a dozen times. You should too. It’s powerful. Humbling.

When the first plane hit the Twin Towers, I was in a college classroom on the South Dakota prairie. I won’t claim to know the emotion of those in New York or Pennsylvania or DC. I was 1500 miles away. Yet, it remains a defining day in my life. A core memory tainting the invisible parts of me.

An assault on my nation. My home.

I cannot fathom what it is to be an Ukrainian today.

I cannot fathom fighter jets slicing through the February sky over a farmhouse not so different from the one I grew up in.

I cannot fathom tanks and missiles netting over the radioactive ground of Chernobyl. Reports are that the fragile facility may have been damaged and nuclear waste released.

I cannot fathom what it would be to ask one of my sophomore students to defend and die for their freedom, our freedom. You see, anyone ages 16-60 willing to fight was given a weapon. They’ve been teaching them how to clear buildings. They’ve been training with plywood guns.

I cannot fathom what it is to wait on a bus shouldered against some weeping stranger. Or in a line of cars certain only of what they are leaving but not where they might go. Or what they may return to.

I don’t speak Russian, but one video purportedly shows a woman offering sunflower seeds to a heavily armed Russian soldier. I can’t fathom the bravery it took to ask him to put those seeds in his pockets so when he died, they’d bloom on Ukrainian soil.

I can’t fathom the courage of the Russian citizens in Putin’s hometown and others blocks from Red Square protesting the invasion. Pressing back against riot police.

I cannot fathom what it is to adhere a sticker to one’s child’s shirt. A sticker with contact information and their blood type. Miriam and Seth are both A+. Does that make it realer for you? Would you put it on their winter coat or the clothes beneath? Perhaps both.

Fight like hell Ukraine. The free world is watching.

Godspeed.

“There is no purgatory for war criminals. They go straight to hell, ambassador.”

In This New Year

In this new year - I hope you know the sweetness of making something... a quilt, a bench, a good turn of phrase. Anything. Just create.

I hope you laugh hard at least once. Hard enough to clear the sorrow from your chest.

I hope something makes you cry. With happiness or not. We're more human when the outside reaches in. And this world is in desperate need of raw humanity.

I hope you find a way to do better, be better, hope better. A way to look past what is ugly and hard. Or better yet, fix it.

I hope you sing in the car. Or the kitchen. Or the shower. Loudly, to a song that makes you think of where you want to be or where you've been.

Finally, I hope you lay to rest whatever ghosts and regrets are haunting you and your wearied mind. May they find peace - and with them - you too.

Rest well tonight, friends. Then get to the business of living brilliantly. 
And be kind.

I hope it for you. And me too.

An open letter to my kindergartener on her last day of school

At a few minutes after 3:00, you'll wait outside the school. Clutching your jacket and a backpack full of all the things that haven't found their way home yet. You're wearing the new dress. The one in a favorite shade of green that arrived just as this last cold spell moved in. I tried not to cringe as your bare legs carried you to the playground this morning.

Can you feel it? The tying of the knot to mark the place? The setting of a lock. I can almost hear the click within the recesses of us.

And with it, you are at once entirely yourself and something new. "Kindergarten" a past-tense category that we can no longer add to. The edit is final, and now you'll slip into summer and wear that for a happy while.

And tonight we'll dance in the kitchen and grill hamburgers and celebrate you. Then a bath. Then a book. Then tuck you into bed. 

And then I'll sit in the quiet expanse of alone and listen to the last echoes of the click.