And Then..
Dear Solomon,
Last night a colleague and a friend shared with me an interesting thought exercise. She has to give a speech to 50 people she’s never met, and the only guideline she has is “and then.” That could mean anything, really. That is the beauty of this thought exercise — you can interpret it however you want. What came up for me was “the moment when everything changed.” I thought of my own “and me” moment, a moment when I changed.
It just so happens that today is Valentine’s Day, which will be forever known as the day the Parkland massacre happened. My “and then” moment is about that day. I was in my office, on the 20th floor of a huge building at a bustling corner of Market Street in San Francisco. I heard a commotion coming from the street, surprised to hear all the way up on the 20th floor. I looked outside, and saw huge groups of students, as young as elementary school age, walking out of their schools to protest the cowardice and inaction of adults who failed to protect them from guns, machines of war carried onto school campuses.
You were just two, and the worst, most cruel and corrupt person to be president of our beautiful nation had been in that job for just about a year. During that year, I spent my days depressed, paralyzed by inaction and grief. I was just getting through the days. It felt like the life I loved and the life your dad and I built for you was under threat. The constant barrage of emotions and fear kept me from acting, which I know I had to. But how do you act when everything is awful? Where do you start? Here’s a little secret: at times like that, and contrary to your instincts, focusing on one thing may be the most useful thing of all.
By the time you read this, I hope gun violence is no longer an issue. But right now, parents all over the country are in fear of sending their children to school every day. Children like you have to endure active shooter drills and lockdowns, that rob you of your innocence. Just last week you were telling me about the lockdown in your preschool. You are just 4, and you don’t know what that means, but it breaks my heart into a million pieces that we put you through this because adults in power are too greedy to refuse the gun lobby money and too cowardly to lose their power. When I saw these children — some not too much older than you — marching in the streets for their lives, because we as adults failed to act, I felt awful. I felt so sad for the broken families and the thousands of children we lose every year to this senseless, ridiculous and completely unnecessary epidemic. It felt like a dagger though my heart that these children are put through trauma of drills in their schools, because we failed to act. But I also felt shame. I felt ashamed that as an adult, as a parent, I did nothing to change it. It seemed too hard, too big, too upsetting to even start. By doing nothing, I was part of the problem. But now I was your mommy, and I couldn’t continue to do nothing. I felt responsible for you and for doing everything I could to give you and other children a fighting chance at life — by reducing gun violence, by fighting for our environment, and by ending family separations and detention of immigrant children just because of the color of their skin. When you become a parent, you also become a parent to all the world’s children.
“Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief.
Do justly now.
Love mercy now.
Walk humbly now.
You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
This quote hangs on my wall now, and it reminds me to act every day, in spite of enormity of the world’s problems and the relative insignificance of my personal contributions. I will never allow the magnitude and difficulty of problems stop me.
And so after Parkland, I got off my ass and started working, fighting for your future. Having had a long career in community management, community organizing came naturally to me. I joined Moms Demand Action, a group of fierce mothers who are tired of burying their children, consoling them after lockdowns, and fearing sending them to school. I worked alongside millions of fierce moms with our legislators to pass better gun safety laws, I organized budding volunteers to share their voice and hold our elected leaders accountable, I worked on elections. The 2018 election was a sea change, and we flipped many state legislatures to elect people who promised us to do what’s in their power to stop this epidemic.
As we are heading into the 2020 election year, I feel scared. It feels like we as a nation and as the world are on the precipice of either something great or something truly awful. We won’t know which way it’s going to be for quite some time. I also feel energized, because I know that what we do now will determine if it’s awful or good. We have the power to shape the future with millions of consistent actions every day. Probably the best thing about this work has been finding my tribe of fierce fighters, mostly women, who feel the same as me. When I’m with them, I know that we will be ok, because the world with people like that in it — it just has to turn out good. There is just no other way. It can’t be any other way, and I will spend every waking moment this year working to elect people who will help us end the epidemic of gun violence, protect the environment for your generation, and to stop detaining small immigrant children in cages because of the color of their skin.
Son, I want you to learn how to tap into your own power during times when you don’t feel powerful at all. I want you to learn how to take action in spite of fear, and because of love. Just because things are bad and scary and you don’t know what will happen next, don’t allow your feelings to stop you from acting. Above all, you have agency, you have power to change things — even when it doesn’t feel that way. People will try to take your power, to make you think that things are so bad, it doesn’t matter what you do. This is not true. Your job is to access your power and to help others step into theirs. Never become cynical. People in power want you to feel that way, because you then are easier to scare and manipulate. Don’t give them that power over you. Let love drive you instead. Remember: you are powerful, and the only person who can take that from you is you. I’ll share a little secret with you: it also feels infinitely better to do something instead of screaming into the pillow — and you may just meet amazing people the way I did. There is always something you can do, even when things feel hopeless — and there are always people doing it. Go find those people. Those are your people. You will guide each other through the darkness. Especially when things are dark, you have to dare to hope, feel joy and feel your own power.
This feeling of shame of my inaction and my powerlessness that I felt that day — I will never forget it. It is the day that your Mama became your Mama Bear, fiercely fighting for you. I felt powerless before then, but that day I became powerful. I will never stop fighting for you. I love you more than you will ever know, my Baby Bear, my sweet valentine. You are my “and then.”
