action.
February 14
It was Valentine's Day. We were in Paris. It had been the trip of a lifetime, our annual kid-free trip together, and we'd just spent the evening hours wandering the majestic halls of the Louvre. When the museum closed at 9:30pm, we walked hand-in-hand back to our hotel, the undeniable Paris charm surrounding us on every street corner, every brasserie, every puddle reflecting the lights of the city.
Back at the hotel, I checked my phone. It was 10:30pm in Paris, 4:30pm back home. My phone was exploding with text messages. The first were from my sister, who lives in Coral Springs, FL, near my parents—the city I where I grew up, five minutes down the road from Parkland:
I scrolled through the responses from my other sisters and mother, each reacting with horror and grief and shock—the shock that comes not when an all-too-common mass shooting happens, but when it happens to your community.
We turned on the TV in our hotel. Only three channels were in English; one of those was CNN. I stared at the screen, seeing the familiar sights of my part of the state full of chaos, images of students streaming out of the building. I felt small and helpless and guilty for being so far away. I wanted to help. And then I wanted to fly home, get my 2-year-old daughter, and bring her back to Paris, or anywhere else in the world, where school mass shootings just don't happen.
But we had two more days in Paris. I tried to be present, eyeing Rodin's Thinker and ordering vin chaud and dipping a freshly made waffle into rich chocolate sauce. And then I'd remember what was happening back home, and the spell would be broken.
February 16
We landed back in Boston. I turned my phone on. My sister and mom were getting reports—people they knew had lost their children, grandchildren, friends—I couldn't get home to my daughter fast enough.
That night, we added a line to our evening prayer that, nearly three months later, we still say: "We pray for the families in Parkland who are grieving, who are healing. Bring them your peace...and give us strength to never stop fighting for change in this country."
I believed praying was a good thing to do. But I knew that praying and taking action was better.
We turned on the TV in our hotel. Only three channels were in English; one of those was CNN. I stared at the screen, seeing the familiar sights of my part of the state full of chaos, images of students streaming out of the building. I felt small and helpless and guilty for being so far away. I wanted to help. And then I wanted to fly home, get my 2-year-old daughter, and bring her back to Paris, or anywhere else in the world, where school mass shootings just don't happen.
But we had two more days in Paris. I tried to be present, eyeing Rodin's Thinker and ordering vin chaud and dipping a freshly made waffle into rich chocolate sauce. And then I'd remember what was happening back home, and the spell would be broken.
February 16
We landed back in Boston. I turned my phone on. My sister and mom were getting reports—people they knew had lost their children, grandchildren, friends—I couldn't get home to my daughter fast enough.
That night, we added a line to our evening prayer that, nearly three months later, we still say: "We pray for the families in Parkland who are grieving, who are healing. Bring them your peace...and give us strength to never stop fighting for change in this country."
I believed praying was a good thing to do. But I knew that praying and taking action was better.
February 19
Back in Massachusetts, fighting jet lag and adjusting to the time zone, my daughter asleep, I sat at the table to resume the schoolwork I'd blissfully abandoned while in Paris. I was working through a chemistry class for nursing school, and that night I was reading about wave theory.
Waves, as explained, transmit energy, displacing particles as they do, but once the wave has passed the particles return to their original position. So nothing is really changed once the energy has passed through. I also learned, with a sudden disturbing awareness, that we are surrounded by and constantly walking through energy and waves. Mostly, we don't notice it.
Until we do. Until a(nother) shooting happens, and creates a wave, and we are displaced as the awful energy rushes through and past us. The laws of wave theory say we’ll return to our original position….but hopefully this time we won’t.
Waves, as explained, transmit energy, displacing particles as they do, but once the wave has passed the particles return to their original position. So nothing is really changed once the energy has passed through. I also learned, with a sudden disturbing awareness, that we are surrounded by and constantly walking through energy and waves. Mostly, we don't notice it.
Until we do. Until a(nother) shooting happens, and creates a wave, and we are displaced as the awful energy rushes through and past us. The laws of wave theory say we’ll return to our original position….but hopefully this time we won’t.
February 20
My sister sent a text. Her friend, a teacher at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas, had put out a request—a tangible way to help. The teachers were going back to school first, but many of their classrooms were still considered crime scenes. They'd be cramming their classes into any available space—computer labs, conference rooms—and they needed supplies. Curriculum and "uplifting novels" they could teach. Pencils, paper, binders the students could use. Classroom decorations to brighten the otherwise drab de facto rooms. Encouraging notes to the students to hang on the walls.
I grabbed a stack of my daughter's finger paintings and marked them up with a sharpie:
#MSD Strong
Boston loves you
We love MSD
Then I loaded up an Amazon.com shopping cart with school supplies and shipped them to Parkland.
That night we prayed again. But this time, I had also taken action.
March 8
I received a letter from Representative Joe Kennedy III, thanking me for contacting him. I'd been regularly calling and emailing his office, expressing my desire for better gun control laws. Each time I called, I'd choke up, explaining, "I grew up near Stoneman Douglas. I have friends who went there. This is hitting home."
My sister had been sending around the NRA ratings for each of my family's senators and reps, both federal and state level. While I was familiar with calling my federal legislators (I'd been an active caller for gun control since Sandy Hook, for human trafficking issues since 2012, and for what I can only refer to as "general disappointment" since the 2016 election), I'd never thought about my state level lawmakers. I got on the phone.
That night we prayed for Parkland, and then we prayed that our legislators would take action.
March 26
We dropped our daughter off with my in-laws. I hugged her harder than I ever have, and said, "Mommy and Daddy are going to march so that you never, ever have to think about this."
Then we grabbed our signs and boarded a train for the city to join March for Our Lives.
It was a beautiful day. The streets were packed. People were angry, but also kind to each other. We were celebrating our shared belief that life is more important than guns, and we were basking in the right to demonstrate this belief in the streets. Mercifully, the counter-protest was small, and surrounded by police. We finished the march at the entrance to the Boston Common, where organizers directed people 25 and under to go closer to the stage, and everyone else to the back. This was a youth movement—by youth, for youth—and we realized that generational difference more than ever as I looked around at high school students waving signs and chanting and thought, "What was I worrying about when I was 15 years old?" Back in Parkland, my nephews (age 10 and 11) marched, too, holding signs that said, "Future Voter."
These students were defying the laws of wave theory. They would not go back to how they were before the energy rushed through. They'd been irreversibly changed.
That night we prayed for Parkland, and then we prayed that more people would step up to fight, that change would be real and lasting.
April 8
Moms Demand Action is a bipartisan lobby group fighting for common sense gun reform in America. I'd joined them from the margins, getting their emails and making phone calls based on new pieces of legislature. But I hadn't physically joined them yet.
And then I was tired of not being part of them, and looked online to see if any upcoming events were remotely close to where I live. It couldn't have been an accident—the day I looked, they posted a new chapter meeting. The new chapter would be for my town, and the few towns surrounding it.
Two of my neighbors (also moms) came with me. We assembled in a small room in the library, watched a presentation from the MDA chapter lead for Massachusetts, and learned about the ERPO bill (Extreme Risk Protection Order), also known as the Red Flag Bill, also known as h.3610.
We had instructions to make phone calls to help push the bill out of committee so the house could vote.
That week, we prayed for Parkland, and we called, and emailed, and called again.
April 30
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The moms (and grandmothers and men and women from all backgrounds) crowded into a conference room. I'd never been inside the Massachusetts State House, even as I'd walked past it countless times. I gazed at the stunning marble columns, elaborate gold-leaf ceilings, and portraits lining every hall (unmistakably, all the portraits were white men with white hair).
We filled out postcards to Governor Baker, urging him to support h.3610. We heard from the bill's sponsor, Representative Decker from Cambridge. We heard from Chief Wojnar, president of the Massachusetts Police Chiefs Association, which supports the bill.
Then we lobbied. Divided in groups of seven, we stopped at the offices of every state rep and senator to drop off a copy of the letter by the Police Chiefs Association, as well as share our stories. One man in our group told a staffer about how his son had been killed by an assault weapon. Another man's brother had been shot five times at a hospital. We tried to find out who was in support of the bill, and who wasn't. The staffers were pleasant, but busy. We stopped in anyway.
That night, we prayed for Parkland. We prayed for change in this country. And I prayed that my daughter would never know the fear of school shootings. That she'd look back on this time of history and ask, "What on earth was everyone thinking?" That she'd use her voice to advocate for change. That she'd use it to speak for others.
That she'd always find the strength to take action.