I have worked in the news for 25 years. I am a journalist and a newsgatherer. I find video from around the world and share
the images with people who subscribe to our service: affiliates, international
broadcasters, Internet resources, talk shows, whoever needs news video – I give
it to them. Sometimes the stories are
fun – like a one-time-only sale of beer in the USA
by Trappist Monks in Belgium
trying to raise money to build a new monastery; or the piano from the movie “Casablanca ” selling at a New York City auction. That’s how my day started yesterday. It was fun.
We didn’t cover those stories because…the fun never lasts
long where I work.
I have seen horrible raw footage for many, many years. I have cleaned up wars so as not to offend
audiences at dinner time. I have
grudgingly blurred nude art work so as not to “offend” the eyes of the
innocent. I have furiously not
distributed images of hundreds of dead babies in Syria . I have shown long distance shots of smoking
plane crash debris. I watched two
enormous buildings burn down before my eyes, trying to avoid the fear and heartache
as I searched for the best camera angle.
I have heard a man scream while being beheaded in Iraq and
another while discovering his murdered daughter’s body in a college dorm room. I have watched children dangle from windows
as they flee mass murderers. I’ve done
my job. I’ve never cried. I’ve hidden behind the news by providing the
images. I have buried the pain so I can
keep on working. Instead of feeling, I
tell jokes. I drink wine. I watch movies.
I hug the people I love as often as I can. I squeeze my little boy until he tells me to
“stop.” I tell him stories about good versus evil where evil always loses, and
bad guys always become good.
I am tired.
Yesterday, for me, was the end of holding back. I put my head down on my desk periodically as
the news dwindled in - in all its confusing fluidity. I took deep breaths and kept going. The world needed the video. I needed to be factual and distribute the
image of the right killer. The world
needed to get their reporters on the air.
I needed to breathe air.
Ironically it was our office Christmas party on December 14th. We share gifts and have a baking
contest. I argued with a co-worker as to
whether or not such festivities were appropriate on this day. It’s the one thing in that newsroom that many
people look forward to each year. My gut
wanted to carry on. His wanted to shut
it down. We compromised and managed to
keep it very low key. Nothing would make
the day any better so what did it matter anyway?
As I went on to Facebook periodically to find information on
the killer, the victims, name spellings of survivors…I stumbled upon images of
3 babies born that day to friends and extended family. Three beautiful faces wrapped in soft
blankets, wearing those baby hospital hats, one with a Christmas ribbon on her
head. That’s when the tears
started. Those beautiful babies, those
joyful parents, the havoc taking place just north of where I sat. So much joy.
So much tragedy. So much
confusion spinning around my head.
Despite everything I’ve seen, I’ve never cried about the
news until yesterday.
I cried when I squeezed my little boy when he ran to the
door shouting his usual excited, “Mommy,” and tried to hide my sobs as he
looked at my eyes and kissed my cheek. I
told him I had a bad day – just like he had had the day before when things in
his gym class didn’t go so well. I thought about all the Mommies and Daddies
who wouldn’t hear those happy shrieks as they walked in the door that day. I put my boy to bed last night and cried
about all the empty beds in Newtown ,
Connecticut . I breathed in my son’s breath. I kissed the back of his head. I absorbed his tiny snores. I thanked the universe for my blessing and
cried even harder for those who longed for their own blessings as they sit in
shock and wonder what the hell happened and why the most precious thing in
their world was snatched away for no good stinking reason.
Many of you reading this may believe in the antiquated 2nd
amendment to the United States Constitution.
Please rethink that stance.
Please in the name of the hundreds of people who have died or been
wounded in the last decade as a result of mass shootings. In the name of the babies who died
yesterday. In the names of the parents
who wish they had died instead. In the
name of the siblings, the grandparents, the aunts, uncles, cousins, and best
friends whose lives have been changed forever.
Please rethink the law that no longer pertains to who we are as a people
today.
Many of you reading this may not believe in universal
healthcare. You may not have given
mental healthcare a passing thought.
Please, again, in the name of everything we are…think and rethink. The mentally ill cannot take care of
themselves, they should not own guns, they should be assisted by you and me
even if it means paying more tax. We
live in a society of people where one action affects another and another…its
never ending. We don’t live in a
bubble. Lucky us – the ones who can
still hold their babies in their arms.
Lucky us. Now let’s reach out to
those not so lucky. It won’t kill any of
us to pay more tax to support society.
For those of you who want to tell me to shut up – say it –
it’s your right under an amendment that has actual meaning. As a journalist, I’m not supposed to express
my opinions, let alone write about them.
As a human being and as a mom I will never be silent again. I will fight the gun laws now with everything
I am. I will fight for my boy. I will defend my family, your families, the
earth, humanity with my freedom of speech but never with a weapon of mass
destruction.
There is no argument anyone can give me about the right to
bear arms that I will not tear down, rip up, destroy, and smash to smithereens
with my ability to think, speak, and love.
Try me. I’m up for it.
Your voice is a brilliant one and must be used to make a dent in any consciousness that still muddles around in darkness. There are over 33,000 murders a year, over dozens of killings a day as a result of guns. Guns have one purpose--and that is to kill and destroy. There is no recovery from a fatal gun killing be it deliberate or accidental. It is a "final 'solution'" for humans and animals and should be
ReplyDeletecompletely outlawed in my opinion.; "The Culture of Gun Ownership" is just another euphemism for "The culture of violence." The dead deer on top of a pickup. The picking up of a murder victim. Dead is dead, once and for all. Maybe the gunowner needs to feel powerful--play god--that they hold the power of life and death in their hands and thereby have total control. Control and power over others is at the root of their attraction to guns and the result of feelings of extreme powerlessness. The second amendment was written at a time when the country was young and structures for safety and protection were not established. The government was young. Nowadays, idealogues have stacked up arsenals of military weapons so that they can turn on their own elected government; make guns as easily available as the cheapest, violent video game. We live in a violent culture--the most violent in the world that puts us on a par with Yemen, not with any other civilized country in the world. Twenty children, six adults....and how many more massacres do we need to prove ourselves to be the savage culture we seem to be aspiring to?