Hurting

Everything hurts,
Our hearts shadowed and strange,
Minds made muddied and mute.
We carry tragedy, terrifying and true.
And yet none of it is new;
We knew it as home,
As horror,
As heritage.
Even our children
Cannot be children,
Cannot be.

~ Excerpt from “Hymn for the Hurting,” by American poet and activist Amanda Gorman. The youngest inaugural poet in U.S. history, Gorman is author of “The Hill We Climb,” “Call Us What We Carry” and “Change Sings.” The rest of her poem’s verses are within this post below.

Sunday was my first car show of the season, the Heritage Days Festival of Cars at Rochester Municipal Park. I’d forgotten about it until that morning and decided to take Mustang Sal for a spin, blow the stink off her pollen-coated body and get some fresh air on a near-perfect Memorial Day weekend afternoon.

I pulled into the park and found a shady spot under a tree in the first row of classic cars. It was about noon, and people were already starting to leave. I didn’t care as I set up my red and black folding chair, plopped down and put my frozen water bottle in the cup holder.

I liked being alone in the park. Sometimes solitude calls and you must answer.

What I didn’t notice was the group of more than a dozen people about a chip shot away from me under a maple tree in full bloom. Looked like a mix of family, friends and children. Lots of children, from toddlers to teens.

I could hear familiar phrases of Arabic amid laughter and the sound of dribbled soccer balls, thwacks of badminton birdies and whizzing Frisbees.

One older gentleman stood outside the family circle with both arms folded behind his back holding a string of worry beads. I hadn’t seen those in years. My father’s father, Jiddu, used to carry them in that very fashion: behind his back, slightly leaning forward, head held high.

From ancient Greece, worry beads are believed to calm the holder, help them pass the time, guard against bad luck or quit a bad habit.

Always smiling, my Jiddu never seemed worried about anything. Maybe he was trying to quit chain-smoking unfiltered Camels. But I highly doubt it.

All of it made me think of how cool it was that in 2022 people still did this over holiday weekends. Even in these uncertain times when so many families are hurting. We all could use some worry beads.

I tried not to think about Uvalde, Texas, where yet another 18-year-old madman shot up an elementary school classroom and massacred 19 children and two teachers. Someplace I’d never even heard of and now I can’t stop thinking about it.

Yet another unthinkable tragedy. Unspeakable, except in America we’re practically numb to them. Comfortably numb.

Everything hurts.
It’s a hard time to be alive,
And even harder to stay that way.
We’re burdened to live out these days,
While at the same time, blessed to outlive them.

Seeing this family in the park just being together reminded me of a line I had heard last week on the series finale of ABC’s “This is Us.” (No spoiler alert if you haven’t watched it yet.)

On a rare lazy Sunday with no specific plans, the show’s patriarch Jack Pearson says this to his three children: “That’s what we’re doing, just collecting these little moments. We don’t recognize them when we’re in them because we’re too busy looking forward. But then we spend the rest of our lives looking back trying to remember them, trying to be back inside them.”

Perhaps that’s what I was doing there alone in this park today. Just me. No plans. Reflecting on the sum of my experiences.

Then an errant Frisbee burst through my reverie sailing into Sal’s passenger side window. Good thing it was open. I stood up and became my father.

“Yullah! You kids! Get away from my car! Go play over there!” waving far, far away.

I think the smallest child nearly peed himself. I handed the flying disc to an adult, who apologized and whisked the rug rat away.

OK, one thing: I can’t believe I said “Yullah,” a common Arabic word for “let’s go” or “come on” (as in hurry up) that suddenly popped into my head. Good thing Rebecca wasn’t with me.

This alarm is how we know
We must be altered —
That we must differ or die,
That we must triumph or try.
Thus while hate cannot be terminated,
It can be transformed
Into a love that lets us live.

Returning to my quiet spot, I was startled by two women who asked me to sign a petition regarding voter ID cards. They asked how I was doing.

“Sad,” I said without thinking. “The state of the world, you know.”

“I hear you,” said the older woman who knew what I meant with no explanation. “Another senseless tragedy. Maybe this time it will matter.”

I listened to her pitch and then signed the petition. I’d do just about anything to make voting easier and get some lame politicians out of office.

The younger woman thanked me adding, “Hope this helped make your day better.”

Yeah, it did. A little. Maybe this time it will matter.

I took a walk around the park to admire the classic cars and then returned to my spot. The place was clearing out since the event ended at 3 p.m. I closed Mustang Sal’s hood, picked up my chair and gathered whatever else I had used and closed the trunk.

Then, BAM! It happened again. Son of a … Frisbee!?

This time it hit my front tire. Now I was ticked.

I grabbed the Frisbee and walked over to an older kid, once again channeling my inner Jimmy John (my dad, not the sandwich chain). He looked like a deer caught in headlights and started apologizing.

Before he could finish, I said something about being more careful and having respect for other people’s property. I did not say get off my lawn. Close.

“This is mine now, OK?” I said holding up the Frisbee. “You. Hit. My. Car. This time I’m keeping it.”

The older kid shrugged and walked away. He couldn’t care less and probably had better things to do.

Within milliseconds, another child appeared like a freakin’ hologram.

It was pee-pee kid. “No. Mine. Give back.”

Then this pitiful plea from that curly-haired little pisser: “Me. Sorry.”

I gave it back. You know I did.

May we not just grieve, but give:
May we not just ache, but act;
May our signed right to bear arms
Never blind our sight from shared harm;
May we choose our children over chaos.
May another innocent never be lost.

Maybe this time it will matter.

For the sake of those 19 children and two teachers.

May no child ever have to dip her hands in the blood of a lifeless classmate who lay next to her and then smear the blood all over herself to play dead to save herself from a mass shooting.

And for the sake of 11-year-old Miah Cerrillo, who survived by doing just that.

It’s not guns. (Yes, it is.)

It’s a mental health issue. (No, it’s not.)

We can’t fix it. (Yes, we can.)

Maybe this time. If not now, when?

Maybe everything hurts,
Our hearts shadowed & strange.
But only when everything hurts
May everything change.