We are whacking away at childhood innocence. Lockdown drills. Active shooter drills. Arming teachers. Guns in schools, parks, playgrounds. My god, what have we done?
When Bird gets home from school we have an hour together before Deal scampers in from up the hill. I relish this time with Bird. It’s really our only time to talk candidly and privately. He chats and opens up and generally just absorbs the moments we have together. It’s easy for a 12-year old boy to open up to his mother if she’s otherwise engaged versus sitting knee to knee. Boys tend to talk while doing, while most girls (and women) like to focus on just the talking. And so it goes that I chop and saute while he chats and snacks. It’s in the after school moments we talk about things that 10-year old Deal is still sheltered from – the ups, downs, and zigzags of the world.
I told Bird today about the shooting in Oregon. He looked at me bewildered. “Again, Mom? Again?” His eyes glanced down, his feathery long eyelashes brushing the remnants of baby fat atop his cheek. He looked up at me looking lost, confused, incredulous. I stifled a sob. Days and days worth of sobs for all we have lost at the pull of a trigger. Bird said it seems like there’s a shooting everyday and for sure gun deaths and accidents pepper the news every single day. It’s true, I told him. Every. Single. Day. In America. And he said, “Only in America, Mom. ‘Only in America’ means a lot of good things, but not this.”
And I just don’t know what to say anymore.