What Matters?…

What matters is our children, and this year has made us afraid that we cannot protect them.  Not just from COVID-19, but from the intersectionality of gun violence, racism, cultural inequity, and senselessness that is the underbelly of American society.

     With most of our children learning remotely and many parents at home trying to help them, sometimes we struggle to make sense of our own lives.  How did we all come to live in the fantastical world of Zoom?  And when we look up from the digital classroom, how can we cope with the killings, the injustice, and the horror we witness all too often on TV? 

      We witness fortitude and role modeling, too, in the positive activism and demands of people of every age, every color.  Supporters of Black Lives Matter marched in cities across the country in protest for the killing of George Floyd, calling for racial equity and police reform.  They marched for days and weeks.   A year earlier, after a mass killing at the Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, students led the March for Our Lives, a nation-wide demonstration for gun control.

      It is a lot to handle. For the sake of personal well-being for our kids and ourselves, we take refuge in simple acts of pleasure and normalcy.  Donning our masks, we go for a walk. At home, we share a favorite family meal, watch a funny movie.  Even when we return to harsher realities, we can take heart from two little boys who see only a best friend as they run to embrace each other.  For them, 400 years of racial violence and oppression do not exist. Just watch.

     These little boys are what matter.  They are our future.  They have the right to grow up, undivided by bias and with equal opportunity to achieve their dreams.  They are the American story we want to write. So, on this Independence Day, let’s celebrate two young friends with a smile, hope, humility, and with the promise to make things right for them and for all of us.