Tears. Happy, joyous tears and cheers and little words of encouragement and prayers were what filled my ears and left my mouth on Sunday morning, June 12, 2016. I was helping my family to welcome the newest member of our pack into the world. I was surrounded by the people that I love, in a place that I felt safe, holding a person that was so pure and untouched by this world. Everything seemed so perfect for just a moment. A few hours later, when I was forcibly reentered into the world, I saw words and tears of a different nature entirely. Rather than cheers, echoes of earth-shattering moans and sobs filled my ears and suddenly, devastation was all around me. There had been a shooting in Orlando, a deliberate attack in the LGBTQ community, and it was the worst one yet. Everything stopped, and for a moment, the world seemed frozen.
I remember that my initial reaction to all that happened that day was just a continuous “why?”, why and how could this happen. Who would do such a thing? The more I thought, the less I could process. The more I sifted through details in my mind, the less sense it all made. I couldn’t bring myself to process what happened, and then I realized something: it wasn’t my job to process it. As a human being, I had every right to feel angry and hurt and devastated by what had happened to so many innocent, beautiful human beings. As a person of color, I had every right to grow angry at, yet again, another example of marginalization within our world and a minority group of people being treated as less than. But as a straight woman who can never truly understand and bare the weight of what happened to those beautiful people on her shoulders, I do not have a right to claim this devastation for myself. My job in this is to grieve, yes, but also to stand for those who have fallen and for those who feel too weak and fragile to stand for themselves right now. My job is to encourage and pray and believe and not stay silent and watch yet another community be forcibly shut up out of fear. My job is to be a friend, hold a hand, and march with the world to make a difference.
The truth is, there is no explanation of what happened. Even if one is reported and people attempt to make excuses or find reasoning, there is no excuse for the horrific slaughter of innocent lives. There’s the fact that we need stricter gun control laws in this country, that we need a better solution for handling these tragedies because the fact that we can actually place a three digit count upon them is shameful. There’s the fact that we have got to STOP spreading hate, we have got to stop hating those around us and automatically condemning their genuine love because of things that we do not understand- and I do not mean tolerance. At this point, the world tolerance has become such a sour word to me that I literally cringe whenever I hear it. I want to spit it out as if it left the most putrid taste on my tongue. We need to move past tolerance, and finally arrive at acceptance and understanding. We have got to do better. We have to.
As I look at my friends and watch as they try to find ways to heal and pull themselves out of the rubble of this catastrophe, I feel such a heaviness in my soul. I see how weary they are from all that has battled with them for so long. I think about how horrible it was that in a place where people are meant to feel safe and to have a haven of their own they were violated, and all I can offer is a promise to lift them up and do my job as their friend, as their ally, and as a human being. I am reminded of the strength of all of those that have fought tirelessly to get to where they are today. That strength is still alive now, even stronger and brimming with more passion. And I know that love will always win. We will fight with the fierceness of lions, not just as communities or races or orientations, but as a people to see and make a change. And as I close this, not so much an article as much as a stream of consciousness, I hear the beat of a drum- one ready to lead into the fight for freedom and total equality. I see a ray of hope of a brighter, colorful, more prideful tomorrow. And I replay the words of Lin-Manuel Miranda as he accepted his Tony Award that same Sunday:
“We live through times when hate and fear seem stronger.
We rise and fall and light from dying embers.
Remembrances that hope and love last longer.
And love is love is love is love is love is love is love is love cannot be killed or swept aside."
-Lin-Manuel Miranda, 70th Annual Tony Awards (x)
Hate cannot thrive where there is love.
