They Are My Daughter

The past few days have been hard.  Another mass shooting.  These horrific tragedies hit me hard...always have.  Maybe, just as my daughter's brain works in overdrive, my emotions do as well.

I've never been able to watch horror movies or movies with graphic violence or death.  I've never seen Hotel Rwanda, Schindler's List, or Titanic.  Unlike most everyone I know, I don't have the ability to separate myself from the pain and suffering.  Even though I KNOW they're movies, I feel the pain and internalize the suffering my eyes are seeing.

It's 10,000 times worse when that pain and suffering isn't a movie; when it's real life.  I rarely watch the news and have to carefully read and listen to news stories about the daily tragedies throughout the world.  My brain doesn't seem to have the ability to separate "them" from "me."  I've lost friends because of this inability.  When I speak out against violence, child abuse, rape, and all the other atrocities we do to each other, all I can think about is the suffering of the survivors and their families, friends, and loved ones.  I see the faces of my tiny, underweight, malnourished, foster babies I've gently cradled in my arms, covered in bite marks, roach droppings, and dog feces. The "what if that were my mother, father, brother, daughter..." ALWAYS plays in my head. 

I don't think of wars being "over there," but as immediately killing, maiming, traumatizing, and forever changing the lives of HUMAN BEINGS.  People who love, dream, cradle their own children, weep for their dead, and celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and major milestones just as I do.  I ALWAYS see the similarities - I'm a Mother, a daughter, a sister, a friend, just as they are. When I hear their stories, they become a possible alternate story that could have been mine.  Replaced with my loved ones.  And the pain becomes real. 

So, it wasn't surprising when I saw a simple post on Facebook that said, "Oh, Orlando." with a weeping emoji that I KNEW something was very wrong.  I went straight to an online news source and saw the breaking news about the shootings at Pulse.  I read one more article from a different sources and then put it away.  And wept.

The next morning I read two more articles and began to carefully, in my way, follow what was unfolding.  No, I can't listen to the 911 calls or the interviews with the Mothers, Fathers, and families of those involved.  I can't watch the videos captured inside as the massacre unfolded.  I never will.  But, I want to know the souls who were lost, those damaged and irrevocably changed on that night.  To embrace them.  To somehow find a way to take the pain away.  It's not realistic or possible, but that doesn't diminish the overwhelming desire to try.  For me, it's as if getting to know them somehow memorializes and honors them. I can't be in Orlando any more than I can be in Afghanistan or Iraq or could have been in Newtown, Columbine, or Aurora to hold the hand of all the loved ones whose hearts are broken.  I can't even donate money.  So my soul cries out for another way to honor each life.  For me, that's taking the time to KNOW them.  Their goals, plans, fears, loves, and dreams, whenever possible.  And, when I can't know the individual, I try to understand them through their culture, religion, lifestyle, or any other component that may have shaped them as a person.

This unstoppable drive to KNOW means I can't separate myself from them.  It ties us together.  It makes us more alike than different. And it tears my soul apart.

Often, I have to search.  To find the connection through things I don't understand, places I've never been, cultures I've never experienced.  That's not the case with this tragedy.  All I had to do was close my eyes and every one of those impacted was replaced with the face of my daughter; my Latina, lesbian daughter.

While not old enough to go to bars, she anxiously, enthusiastically awaits Pride every year and, this year, proudly marched in the parade.  This amazing life, entrusted to me by her birth mother, wants to go to college, travel, meet her birth family, fall in love, get married and adopt.  She is every person in the club that night.  It is HER RIGHT to live that life, just as it was the right of each and every one of those at Pulse that night to live theirs. 

So, you won't find me praying for Orlando.   Instead, I'll continue my dedication to promoting equality, working to open others' eyes to our overwhelming similarities and not our minute difference. I'll be demanding and voting for those who support legislation to remove assault rifles, not just from the hands of "known terrorists and the mentally ill," but from everyone.  Keep your hand gun and your hunting rifle, but don't come at me with the fact that the 911 terrorists killed with box cutters and airplanes.  As soon as it happened, we eliminated ALL sharps (not just box cutters), took away everyone's "right" to take full sized shampoos, deodorants, and any other liquids on an airplane, and increased airport security nationwide.  Yes, Hitler used gas chambers, but if someone tried to build one today NO ONE would be fighting for that person's "right" to do so.  And, finally, if you believe Cain killed Able with a stone, remember, Cain was ONE person, not 49.

And while my daughter may be just one person, in her I see every other person on this planet.  I can't not.