When your words are tangled up, and your heart is racing, and your mind can’t think, all that’s left is feeling. An overwhelming throb of emotion that courses through your veins and prickles across your skin. You try to hold tight to something, anything, and breathe yourself through it. One. Breath. At. A. Time.
You open your mouth, you suck in air. And somehow, it pours back out of your lungs.
You look into the eyes of your children. Your innocents. Your grounding force. And you have to believe. One moment at a time will be enough. One breath is enough. Because with every moment of violence, hatred, anger, and obscenity, comes the greater response of NO. No, we won’t stand for it. No, we won’t break before it. No, we won’t fall.
My children’s eyes will be filled with love and compassion, for that is what we show them. My children’s words will be filled with hope and inspiration, for that is what we give them. My children’s actions will be filled with honor and integrity, for that is how we treat them. Without question, we will speak of what we see and what we hear. How it affects us and those around us. And the people living through the heart of it. People are connected, on a global stage. The human condition is not delegated to boundaries; what happens within our borders happens to us all.
We are in this together. And we rise above this together.
I am not afraid of the dark. I am with the light. And my children, the bringers of the next generation, are with me. We denounce the actions of others who wish to spread pain, harm, and division to humanity. We stand for those who can’t find their words, who are feeling too heavy to remain upright, who are feeling too lost to ever be seen. We stand with those who breathe with us, one breath at a time. Let the darkness use this last stand as its death throes, and may peace, compassion, education, integrity, and justice prevail.
