A Moment, Frozen In Time
Time marches at a relentless paces. Even as we pause and reflect, time continues on. Never tiring, never stopping. Even when our lives end, it’s not time that stops, it’s us. Time moves on, but we stand still.
There’s a line in Chance the Rapper’s song “Acid Rain” that goes “my big homie died young, just turned older than him.” That line struck me last week, as I remembered a neighborhood friend from my childhood. He was much older when I knew him, or so I thought. So I felt. The song, as it often does put me in a somber and reflective mood, so spurred on by the lyric, grieving and curious, I sought out the article in the local newspaper that announced his murder. I read it and was surprised when I was reminded just how young he was when he died. He was killed at 25. I just turned 29. Not only am I older than he ever got to be, I’ve been older than him long enough that to parrot the line “just turned older than him” wouldn’t be true. There’s been a full presidential term since I passed his age.
When I think of him, I think of him as he was then: cool, fly, charming. And I realize that’s the way he’ll always be. There are worse ways to be than cool, fly, and charming, of course, but I won’t ever get to see that he’s more than that, and less, perhaps. He’s gone. He will forever live in 2008. I think of all the things he will never see and the things he never saw. He never saw an iPad. He’ll never see Black Panther. He never saw his baby sister in her 20s; still loud, still wild. But taller. Wiser. Older. The world has changed, his sister has changed, I’ve changed. But he’s the same: frozen in time, like a mosquito encased in amber, unaware it will never see another sunrise.
When you’re a kid, you think 25 is so old. So adult. When you get there, you realize that at 25, you still feel like that same kid. But you’re not. Not really. You’ve grown. You’ve lived. You’ve matured, though not as much as you thought you would’ve. I think as I write this, of all the kids who will never even see 25. Who will never get to be older but still feel young. Who will never get to relate to that line from “Acid Rain”. But maybe that’s not so bad. They’re sad words, after all. Words of grief. But grief is a gift, because to grieve means we have loved, and that we have lived. That we live.
I grieve now for all those who died in Uvalde, Texas last week. And those in Buffalo two weeks back. And those in the ever-growing list of towns and cities, schools and supermarkets, clubs and churches, that were disrupted, upended, and destroyed by gunfire. Stained with blood, and things thicker, heavier, and deeper than blood that can’t be cleaned away. But most of all, I grieve for the children. Those who were robbed of life, now forever entombed in the year 2022, standing still, never to see another sunrise. But also those who were robbed of friendships and safe spaces and peace. Because the gunman not only stole lives, he shattered others. He didn’t just kill 21 people. He killed thousands of hugs and secret handshakes. He killed thousands of conversations about Roblox and BTS and whether we talk about Bruno. He killed infinite giggles and clandestine whispers. He killed potential futures and fond memories of the past. He killed the anticipation of seeing a best friend in the halls tomorrow (and the next day and the next). He killed the safety of the classroom. The fun of the cafeteria. The peace of mind of parents. The close comfort of siblings. The harmony of a community. The hope of a better tomorrow.
Children die everyday. It’s an unfortunate fact of life. And there’s never an instance when it isn’t sad. But what makes the death of these children and the ones at Parkland, Sandy Hook, and sadly many other schools hurt that much more is not merely the fact that their deaths could easily have been prevented, but that in many ways, these deaths were encouraged. Governor Greg Abbott of Texas who, in the last year alone, has signed more than 22 pieces of legislation that made the purchase and carrying of firearms easier encouraged this. The NRA, who ghoulishly use acts of hatred and terror to promote the further sale of firearms and tactical gear encouraged this. Every politician from Capitol Hill to the alderman’s office who’d rather have a moment of silence than prevent the need for the next one encouraged this. Every coward who champions the 2nd Amendment so they can show off at gun shows, but wouldn’t join a “well regulated” militia if you paid them to — they encouraged this. They wanted this. Moments like these keep their names and faces in the news. These aren’t tragedies for them, they’re opportunities.
These moments allow them to double down on “American values” like “freedom”, but that freedom doesn’t mean freedom from the fear of being murdered at your place of work, worship, or education. It means freedom from having responsibility to your fellow citizens. It means freedom from doing or saying anything other than that which benefits you and you alone. It means more to these people that no one tell them whether they can own a dozen assault rifles than it does that those very same rifles (or ones like them) might be used to murder as many innocent, unsuspecting people as they can.
It seems unbelievable, but we are living in exactly the world the people in power want us to live in. Because the people who truly call the shots are free from actually interacting with the world they so meticulously crafted. Their children don’t go to Robb Elementary, they don’t buy their groceries at Tops, they don’t party at Pulse nightclub. So what do they care what happens to the people that do?
Some dark, wounded part of my soul is tempted to feel glad for anyone who doesn’t have to live in this wretched world anymore. But I know that’s wrong. I know there’s no way to spin or justify or find the silver-lining in the violent deaths of elementary school children. This world can be sickening and hellish, but it can also be beautiful and euphoric. And those kids don’t get to experience any of it. Any of the complex and confusing ways we, the living, experience the world.
People often say that when someone dies, it’s good, because now they no longer feel pain. But might it also be true that they no longer feel joy? I don’t know. What I do know is that the person who killed those innocent children didn’t do it to protect them from the horrors of the world or free them from pain. It wasn’t about them, it was about him. They had no choice in the matter and will never have another choice again.
We live in a country, a world that can’t even unify against the killing of children. How is that possible? How is that sustainable? How is that acceptable? What does it say about us? When time marches on, as it does, will we feel satisfied with the world we built? When we’re all gone, and our lives are just history, and this moment is frozen in time like that mosquito, will those studying that moment through the microscope of progress of the future look upon them fondly? Will they say we did enough? Will they say we tried our best?
Can we say it now?
Rest in Peace to all those who lost their lives to senseless gun violence, especially the children who had so much more life to live.