The Real Issue...

This is the time of year to celebrate family, to give of ourselves to those less fortunate, and to focus on the good in all of us. Yet in Connecticut Friday, a young man shocked the nation with a brazen act of violence. Kindergartners died, teachers and administrators died, a mother died, and heroes were born. Anger and confusion raged. We cried together, we grieved, we were angered, frustrated, terrified… Questions emerged. And we started a conversation about guns. What need do we have for automatic weapons other than in warfare? None. What benefit is there to keeping them legal for the average American to buy them? Very little. Why do we need any guns other than handguns and hunting rifles? We really don’t. Sure, there will be arguments for what the police need, other recreational weapons, but essentially, handguns and hunting rifles are the only weapons that serve a purpose. The problem is, criminals will always find a way to own tools of violence. But the saying is true…guns don’t kill people; people kill people. And in this case with Newtown, Connecticut, the crux of the problem has little to do with guns. It has everything to do with mental health. That’s the discussion we need to be having right now. Regardless of what the young man I purposely do not name here had available to him, he could’ve gotten weapons anywhere. Perhaps he wouldn’t have, but the truth is, he was a ticking bomb. An article by Liza Long addresses what issues should be being discussed right now. If you want a glimpse into the true issue, if you’re ready to start talking about the problem that really plagues this nation, Read “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother.” It will give you a pause, but it will also open the door to understanding the shift in today’s youth. Having just read Jodi Picoult’s House Rules, I have begun to understand that though a mother’s love cannot be dissuaded, sometimes it is not enough. Sometimes there is no warning. Sometimes there are no cures. Sometimes the answers are just as hard as the questions.

Sept. 11 Eleven Years Later...

I'm a die-hard patriot. September 11th shook my foundation as an American, but until this year, I had not visited New York City. Now my thinking has changed. I went to NYC for Labor Day to go to the U.S. Open (my PhD celebration). I had no idea about The Survivor Tree... I read the picture book by Cheryl Somers Aubin (a must if you haven't read it) and it made Sept. 11, 2001, so relevant to me in a different way. So many people were impacted that day, lives changed, and our perspective changed. But it brought out the best in us in so many ways, in our nation's unity, and it strengthened our resolve as Americans, as survivors. We are not the same since that day. Innocence is gone. Naïveté is gone. And sadly, the unity is waning. The political ends are more polarized than ever, but as Americans, we can bridge that gap, because what's most important to this country is not our affiliation, not a policy that affects so little of what we do and what we're about. It's what came about that day. The morning of Sept. 11th, we gasped in horror and then we joined hands to help, to heal, and to head into a future with a strengthened resolve. Remember that feeling. It is what helped us overcome that day; it is what re-emerged after Hurricane Katrina, and it can be our rallying cry as we demand more from ourselves, our friends, and yes, our opposition. Americans can overcome anything. Standing at the edge of the reflecting pools at Ground Zero, a sensation pulsed through me. Through the tears of empathy, I felt all those who died for our freedom, for our rights to express ourselves and stand up for what we believe in. And what I believe in is unity. Glancing at faces around me when I was at Ground Zero, few looked like me yet all shared the same expression. Every walk of life, culture, and race wore the somber expression of our loss but also of our resolve. United we still stand. We did not let terrorism break us down. Surely we will stand just as strong as the divisiveness within our country attempts to do the same. Because no matter what you believe, I hope you believe in America first.

Cyber Dilemma

A former education student of mine just emailed and asked me, “What do I do if one of my students is being bullied online? Should I say something to someone? How can I possibly do anything to help?”

I thought about it hard and realized that we all have a voice, and I preach using it. As a teacher, I call it a “teachable moment.” As a human being, I cry out any time I see it, hear it, feel it. But as an author, in the final stretch of my PhD, I’ve left that hat sitting on a table. I should don it every chance I get, if it means putting even the slightest dent in a growing trend that is beyond disturbing. Children taunting children until they commit suicide. The bullied become the bullies, and the cycle is growing into an epidemic.

Today, I realize that what is wrong in this cyber bullying trend, something captured powerfully in the “Harry’s Law” episode Queen of Snark, is so deep-seated, I’m not sure we can fix it. But we have to try. The symptoms are on TV and the internet every day. But the catalysts aren’t the children doing the bullying, though we can’t condone what they do, but the real culprits sit in studios behind a microphone. The Huffington Post and the like, Nancy Grace and those who use the first amendment to empower their attacks, and every blog that centers on caring more about what goes on in other people’s lives than their own. Because with scrutiny comes judgment, and with judgment comes persecution. When did we allow the shift to this current age of magnifying glass distortion? A friend once told me to get out my mirror before taking out my magnifying glass – and as a society, we’ve long since ditched the mirror.

Why do we care what the Huffington Post says? When did we become permanent lookie-lous? What has happened to us that we care so much about the blood and the yellow? Why do we not only condone judging others but take part in it?

We can’t blame our children for doing what they watch us do everyday and what they see on TV. The downward spiral is dangerous, and if we don’t do something about it – even one person at a time – it will never go away.

Our children are committing suicide because of what others are saying about them. This issue has two sides: let’s stop the bullies, but let’s also start the conversation. Talk to your kids. Help them find the strength to ignore the ignorant and to put the media’s role in perspective. Find out what is going on and what they read and do online. Open your ears and your eyes, because if you don’t, the only voice they’re hearing may be the one taunting them.

For more information, check out http://www.ncpc.org/cyberbullying

Today

I cheer the fall of the instigator and orchestrator of September 11th. I mourn the past few weeks as we recognize the 12th anniversary of the Columbine disaster and watch fellow Americans lose their homes to tornadoes and storms. I struggle to understand the chasm that is growing in the country between the left and right, when the majority of us falls somewhere closer to the middle. And yes, I worry that the Hopis, Aztecs, Mayans, Chinese philosophers and Nostradamus have some insight into the winter solstice next December…

But in the grand scheme of life, I focus on today, on a mother who fights to remember what she had for breakfast, the smartest person I know struggling to get her to brain to cooperate. I strive to inspire her to fight…to beat the disease we can’t see, that robs her of so much of her freedom.

The world is full of turmoil, from losing a house to a fire to so many who struggle to recover from an economic downfall. But nothing any of us can lose, short of a life, can compare to knowing you’re losing your mind. What we use as a cliché looms real for so many. And it looms on the horizon for so many entering middle age. If you could, would you choose cancer over Alzheimer’s? Even death first? Many would…

The idea of losing who we are can’t compare to anything else…I want to crawl into my mom’s brain and jumpstart it, to fill in the blank spaces that are growing like ink stains on a paper towel. And deep down, selfishly, I fear the day she looks at me and has that brief instant of not-knowing….and the brief moments giving way to more.

So yes, I’m thrilled we’ve destroyed the monster who shattered our lives nearly a decade ago. But today, I will cheer when I walk in to visit my mom and marvel at her smile, at the moment when I know she loves me…and remembers me.

Sometimes today is enough.

After the Fire

Few things surprise me anymore. Fewer things humble me, stop me in my tracks and remind me I’m human, I’m fallible, and above all else, I’m one tiny cog in the mechanism of life.

Today, sitting in a rental house, contemplating the months before I’m able to return to my house, a home that will be vastly different, new, absent of the marks fifteen years of life once put on it, I’ve learned a lot. People who love you don’t see the things; people who care about you sift through ashes, the insulation-covered belongings, and roll up their sleeves to put it all back together. And people you see only occasionally step up and remind you that when you give, it comes back to you. I’ve always been quick to donate to those who’ve suffered loss, who go through trying times, to cook a meal for those who need it. Now, after the fire, to have so many people come help us at the house, others who’ve taught for us, who’ve rallied behind us, who’ve offered a thought, a prayer, a heartfelt ‘we’re there for you if you need us,’ renews my strength to overcome this. My house burned down but I didn’t lose my home. My home is with friends, with colleagues, with all the warm messages on Facebook, by email, and phone. I may not have as much as I did before Nov. 4th, but in many ways, I have so much more, and for that, I’m incredibly grateful…

Bullying – A Problem Screaming To Be Stopped

When I wrote my young adult novel Dregs, I’d witnessed a lot of bullying in my school and in my classroom. Some of it blatant, but much more of it subtle, part of an invisible hierarchy. School violence stormed into our world as a full-blown epidemic in the mid-90s. We were horrified. We were disgusted. We were to blame – no other nation has our issues with bullying, with cliques, with the kind of violence seen on the front page of every paper nearly every day. And now, all of that has changed with the internet. Bullying has morphed; it’s virtual, transported through cyberspace. But it still hurts, and for some, it has a lasting, stinging effect. Sometimes permanent. Being a teenager or young adult is hard, and the light at the end of the tunnel is sometimes too hard to see. Tyler Clementi couldn’t see it. Phoebe Prince couldn’t see it. Alexis Pilkington couldn’t see it. Even with the rallying cries of Ellen, their suicides make us question the system, the neighborhoods that perpetuate it, the sports fields that promote it, the schools that can’t or don’t stop it, the internet that hasn’t figured out how to control the cruelty created there.

But it starts so much sooner – the judgmental entitlement, the superiority mentality. A perfect example is a blog in the Advocate. Parents instill their best values in their children. And their worst. The problem is, these belief systems are so deeply entrenched, many of the parents don’t understand what they’re doing. Don’t play with the child of gay parents. Stay away from that Muslim kid. No, you can’t go to the mall with that girl with all the piercings. Hate begats hate. Prejudice starts young, before they have a chance to develop beliefs of their own. So when kids start taunting kids, parents’ mindsets are screaming accompaniment. The worry is, can we silence them, any of them?

Presidential Support...

A Trib Talk person ranted in our Columbia Tribune that he refused to acknowledge Barack Obama as our president because he couldn’t confirm that Obama wasn’t Muslim or that he’d converted to Christianity…I find myself scratching my head. Fear mongering is not new in America. When John F. Kennedy was elected, anti-Catholicism reared its ugly head all across the country. So here we are again. I don’t know whether President Obama is a Christian or not. But if he’s not, should it matter? We’ve had adulterers for presidents (many of them, as a matter of fact), we’ve had openly racist presidents, ignorant presidents, and we’ve had more than our fair share of elitist, richer-than-God presidents. How many of our past presidents represent me, for who I am, how I live, and what religion I practice? Not very many. I’m a middle-class woman, and to date, there’s not been a female president, so should I say, “Ah, hell no, I’m tired of all these rich, power-hungry men making decisions for me…I’m not going to acknowledge my president until we elect a woman!”

It sounds absurd because it is absurd. No matter who my president is, I back him. Peanut farmers, rich men, Catholics, Baptists, Atheists (and we’ve had several)…white, black, cat lovers, adulterers, liars (and wouldn’t that constitute most of them?)… No matter their flaws, they’re still our president, the president of the most amazing country in the world. So people who denounce Obama and say, “He’s not my president,” I find myself wanting to tell them to go find a country that has a leader satisfactory enough for them. Except I know that fear-mongering is about ignorance and intolerance, and I find it most disturbing that God-loving, God fearing people are often the most judgmental. Those are the people who should take out their mirrors before they get out their magnifying glasses.

I wonder what those people would’ve done had they known all the other indiscretions of past presidents. Thomas Jefferson, for starters… Then again, at least he was a Christian, right? But can we prove it?