I Am Too Heartsick to Write

Americans are to be shamed, not pitied. We are not leaders of the free world. We are the harbingers of death.

Photo by the Japan Times

A king wished to celebrate thirty years of peaceful reign, so he summoned his court poet and bade him to write a poem for the occasion.

Two weeks later, on the day of celebration, the poet stood before his king and recited his poem:

Your father will die.

You will die.

Your son will die.

The king was outraged. He shouted for his guards to drag the poet away, but the poet said, “You misunderstood, Sire. What I wrote was a poem of blessing.”

“What blessing?” the king bellowed. “You wished us dead!”

“By your leave, no,” said the poet. “I beseeched the gods to grant you happiness by preserving the natural order of things. First your father dies, then you die, and then your son dies. It is the best any of us can hope for.”

The king, recognizing the wisdom of this, ordered his guards to release the poet, for he knew that witnessing the death of a child is to suffer forever.

Nineteen families in Uvalde, Texas, are incapacitated with pain right now. For reasons that remain unknown as of this writing, an eighteen-year-old high school dropout first shot his grandmother in the face, and then drove to Robb Elementary School and shot nineteen second, third, and fourth graders, in addition to two teachers who were, by all accounts, the cornerstones of their educational community.

These nineteen children, some of whom liked Play-Do and Disney princesses, were thrilled that school was about to let out that Thursday. A whole summer of ice cream trucks and swimming pools awaited them. Someday, they were going to grow up and become fire fighters or teachers or artists. They had dreams, even at that age. Their entire lives were ahead of them: first kiss, first prom, first love, first graduation, first job.

Now they’re in a morgue.

The pain of losing a child never leaves you. It’s not a wound that heals. Ever. Time has no effect on it. Empty are the platitudes that urge you to wait, let time do its thing, one day you’ll wake up and it’ll be okay.

That’s a lie.

You’re never okay. The death of a child is a trauma you never recover from. It’s an amputation. Some parents are lost forever, so warped by grief they become strangers to themselves and others. Others numb themselves, accomplishing much the same thing. All of them are doomed to perpetual anguish.

And that’s when the circus begins its tired refrains.

Texas Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick suggested limiting entrances to just one at smaller schools and arming teachers. Never a word about sensible gun control. Neither he nor Governor Greg Abbot nor Senator John Cornyn nor Senator Ted Cruz would dream of it. They belong to a death cult of white men willing to embrace any fascist ideology that will “own the libs” and put NRA money in their pockets. The entire Republican party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the NRA at this point. If you don’t believe me, take a look at this.

Anyone who says the Democrats and Republicans are the same party is wrong.

U.S. gun production has tripled since the year 2000. Toddlers are finding guns beneath couch cushions and under piles of clothes. The Centers for Disease Control reported that the rate of gun deaths of children 14 and under rose by almost 50% from the end of 2019 to the end of 2020. And yet in states like Texas and Arizona, there are more laws regulating fishing and wildlife than there are about guns.

My son, who is in law enforcement, carries a gun. I don’t like it, but he’s been highly trained, and as the parent of an adult child, I try very hard to accept the things I cannot change. One night, his truck was broken into and his weapon stolen out of the glovebox. My immediate concern was that the gun would be used in the commission of a crime, and they’d trace it back to him.

“There’s no gun registry in Texas,” he told me. “How much CSI have you been watching?”

Many years ago, I was invited to fire a weapon. I raised it, fired it, and was so shaken by the experience, I’ve never touched one since. That much power shouldn’t be in anyone’s hands. Not mine. Not yours.

And now, here we are. Another school shooting. More families crippled by grief. More thoughts and prayers. More grim press briefings. More passing the buck. More Republican lawmakers talking about “mental illness” and “arming teachers.” More Americans wringing their hands in despair.

“Why isn’t anybody doing anything about this?” we wonder out loud. “Why does this keep happening?”

Here, let me tell you.

• It keeps happening because we keep electing Republican lawmakers.

• It keeps happening because Fox News is the Bible of the Republican Party.

• It keeps happening because we can’t get money out of politics.

• It keeps happening because in order to get anything done in a democracy requires consensus, and we are as far from consensus as we’ve ever been in this country.

• It keeps happening because politics are indistinguishable from a giant soccer match with opposing teams and the sides that cheer for them.

• It keeps happening because white people are terrified of Black people and want to arm themselves against the coming race war.

• It keeps happening because homemade weapons known as “ghost guns” make up half the weapons recovered at crime scenes now.

• It keeps happening because of a disingenuous and radical interpretation of the Second Amendment, legislation that was written when Americans were still using the blunderbuss.

• It keeps happening because we persist in believing against all evidence that electing the right lawmakers will change things. They can’t. The good lawmakers lack political will; the bad ones have a few hundred paychecks to cash.

But there is one overarching common denominator that I plan on addressing in next week’s Cappuccinos, and it will likely ruffle a few feathers. I don’t care. There is an elephant in the room, and it’s not just the GOP. I’m going to tackle it head on.

Meanwhile, I leave with you Sonnet 32 by the poet Edna St. Vincent Millay.

Here is a wound that never will heal, I know 
Being wrought not of a dearness and a death 
But of a love turned ashes and the breath 
Gone out of beauty; never again will grow 
The grass on that scarred acre, though I sow
Young seed there yearly and the sky bequeath 
Its friendly weathers down, far underneath 
Shall be such bitterness of an old woe.

That April should be shattered by a gust, 
That August should be leveled by a rain, 
I can endure, and that the lifted dust 
Of man should settle to the earth again; 
But that a dream can die, will be a thrust 
Between my ribs forever of hot pain.

If want to share your thoughts, I want to hear them. Leave your comments below.

Copyright © 2022 Stacey Eskelin