It’s only mid-July and it’s already been a long and frustrating summer. One child is in summer school, which binds us to the rhythm of homework and reasonable bedtimes and the continued pressure of grades. The other child is job-hunting, her hopes rising and falling with each application, each interview. I spend my days shuttling them from responsibility to activity, wrestling with mild jealousy as my friends fill social media feeds with pictures from France, London, Finland, Italy, or Greece. Both cars require extensive and expensive work in the same week, leaving me with barely two nickels to rub together. My mood is further soured one night when a mouse runs out of my bathroom and across my bedroom floor. As I dash to Walmart at 11 p.m. in search of mousetraps, I smack the steering wheel in frustration; can I get a break? I just want a few days with no crises, no responsibilities, and nothing tugging at my bank account.
I flip through talk radio stations as I drive, more lost in my aggravation than focused on the news. Tones are tense; the topic of the day is violence.
In Baton Rouge, Alton Sterling was shot to death by police while selling CDs in front of a convenience store. As my teenage son worries about summer school grades and the loose mouse in our house, Alton Sterling’s son of the same age is weeping openly at a press conference, “I want my daddy!” His father will not come home from work tonight or any other night.
In Minnesota, Philando Castile was shot to death by police during a traffic stop. His death prompts a spate of reminders about the proper way to act when being stopped for traffic infractions: hands on the wheel, fingers spread wide, music off, ID on the dashboard, no sudden moves. I am suddenly and painfully aware that although I am teaching both of my teens to drive, I have not taught them one single strategy for safety during a traffic stop; it never occurred to me that they would need it. I’m still fairly certain they would not be perceived as threatening by police officer. Nonetheless I make a mental note to review these procedures with them.
Castile’s shooting was witnessed by a four-year-old girl in the back seat of the car. As her mother’s boyfriend bled to death in front of them, she comforted her mom, “It’s okay, Mommy. It’s okay. I’m right here with you.” Too many children with stories like hers have passed through my classroom over the years — jittery, angry, aggressive, defiant, blank, withdrawn. I try to imagine how she will make sense of the world after this. Who will she trust? Of what will she dream?
In Dallas, 14 police officers were shot by a sniper during a peaceful protest against the events in Louisiana and Minnesota. Five died. They were mostly men younger than me; their children are younger than my children. They are left to navigate the world, fatherless and angry.
My kids worry if I have a headache or a cold, but aren’t seized with anxiety when they see me getting ready for work each day. They know my return is almost guaranteed. The sons and daughters of the surviving victims in Dallas may never again see their dads put on uniforms without feeling a twinge of fear.
I switch off my radio, my heart heavy at the state of the country. I don’t know how we have drifted so far apart. Perhaps we never were together. I’m an idealist and I want so badly to believe that there is a solution, that people will put their guns down and work for peace. Perhaps I have been blinded by my easy life, a life in which I coexist easily among friends and family of varying races, a life in which my biggest worries are car trouble and ushering my kids through middle class rites of passage.
Inside the store, I pay for a handful of mousetraps and head for the door, my frustration dwarfed by sadness and anger. It’s hard to feel bitter about the lack of a vacation when I think about the men – Alton Sterling, Philando Castile, Brent Thompson, Michael Krol, Patrick Zamarripa, Mike Smith, Lorne Aherns – who won’t make it home tonight, and the children they leave in their wake.
For those children, we have to do better. We have to work toward a society in which neither black nor blue puts people in danger. We have to find a way to heal these rifts.
It’s only mid-July and it’s already been a long and heartbreaking summer indeed.
