The news from Michigan was grim: three kids, ages 18, 18 and 19, were killed by a shooter. Four more, the same ages, were injured. The shooter, an adult, was also dead.
That was the day before Valentine’s Day. It was the 67th mass shooting since Jan. 1. By spring, we will pass 100. We need new laws to prevent at least some of this madness.
While I have written before about the lunacy of gun violence, and particularly the lunacy of allowing assault weapons in our civilian society, 2023 has become, for me, the year when young human lives have become especially precious.
Here on my place, we rang in the new year with an impossible phone call. “Mom,” said my eldest daughter, “are you sitting down?”
The only other time she’s asked me that on the phone was when my youngest was in the ICU, hanging onto life. I quickly found a chair. “Yes,” I answered.
Then she reported that the 17-year-old son of a dear friend was dead. This was a kid I loved. A self-described “farm kid,” his dad keeps our place going, runs the greenhouse. My husband called him “Margot’s first grandchild.” The child was food-obsessed and the ablest cook in his dad’s restaurant. Because he was about to graduate high school, we were in the midst of figuring out how to pay for Culinary School and how to keep him around when he graduated. And, in a few unexpected minutes, that future was snuffed.
Like any of us, I have lost folks before. Grandparents, aunts, uncles, Dad, Mom—but when these oldsters left, we were able to say, “That was a life well-lived. They fulfilled their dreams.” Losing a kid is different.
When I recovered enough, I tried to get ahold of the parents. Unsurprisingly, that was impossible. Still, I was able to text and email messages of condolence along with the universal tag line, “If there’s anything at all you need, please reach out. Please.” Of course, there was nothing.
I can’t tell you what the first few days were like. It was blurry and I took a lot of walks. Friends called to ask why the restaurant was closed, especially during New Year’s. One friend reported that they had reservations, turned up, and found the place dark and a sign. “Due to a family emergency, we are closed until further notice. Sorry for the inconvenience.” She wondered why. When the story came out, the entire town was consumed in grief.
I visited his mom, a neighbor. We had a long hug and I left some soup, salad, rolls. She hadn’t eaten in a couple of days. I asked what she had for breakfast and she showed me a piece of toast with a bite out of it. I hope she ate the soup.
When the restaurant re-opened, a memorial was planned. There was no family space that could house the crowd, so the gathering was held in the restaurant. I showed up and found myself surrounded by cousins and uncles, members of his baseball team and members of his class. His senior picture, big and goofy with spiky dyed-black hair and a favorite jacket, had been blown up to dominate a table covered with pictures. The adults kept busy laying out food while the kids just acted like kids.
There are five stages of grief, we hear, and I got stuck on rage. All the teenage boys looked like our kid and I wanted to grab them by their shirts and shake them. “What are you doing here when he’s gone?” The gathering was too intense. I had to leave.
Six weeks after the death, I hold it together, but I still find myself consumed by anger every now and then. Even the simplest—how’s everyone getting along?—has no answer when a child has been taken. How’s the father? How’s the mother? The sister? The only answer is, “They’ll—we’ll—never be the same.”
Sixty-seven shootings. A couple hundred deaths and thousands of affected friends and family. In America, where economics rule our lives, the costs are astronomical, and maybe emphasizing costs in terms of lost productivity and in terms of rehabilitation for the injured is the way to get some action but that accounting seems so crass. And trivial. Still, we know that the lack of gun laws is due to money and the winners are the Smiths, the Wessons, the Rugers and the NRA. One study found there are 18 manufacturers making assault weapons. Fifteen are private and three are publicly traded. The death of our boy was not due to gun violence. He was killed in an auto wreck, a victim of fatigue and his own refusal to stop for a nap on a road trip.
But his story has given me real respect for the families that have lost kids to guns and for their will to keep going, keep fighting for new laws that will prevent at least some of the horror. It is way past time to act.
Margot Ford McMillen farms near Fulton, Mo., and co-hosts “Farm and Fiddle” on sustainable ag issues on KOPN 89.5 FM in Columbia, Mo. Her latest book is “The Golden Lane: How Missouri Women Gained the Vote and Changed History.” Email: margotmcmillen@gmail.com.
From The Progressive Populist, March 15, 2023
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