Heather Cox Richardson PhD gets a Letters from an American Nobel for the power of her vital summation, her useful detail and her accuracy and for her succinctness tonight. This is a midnight masterpiece.
Heather Cox Richardson PhD gets a Letters from an American Nobel for the power of her vital summation, her useful detail and her accuracy and for her succinctness tonight. This is a midnight masterpiece.
Sandy. I wanted to post something about the Uvalde massacre upon which Professor Richardson continues to inform us. Which is so important in keeping this from fading to a fleeting memory. I received this from a friend yesterday. Apparently it is circulating but is first time I saw it. A letter from a mother. So…..so wrenching. Talk about a mother’s truth….. we must continue to honor the families…and do what we must to protect our children of the world as we raise them.
From Facebook/ shared with me.
“…written by a mom of one of the Uvalde victims:”
"The chicken soup in her thermos stayed hot all day while her body grew cold.
She never had a chance to eat the baloney and cheese sandwich. I got up 10 minutes early to cut the crust off a sandwich that will never be eaten.
Should I call and cancel her dental appointment next Wednesday? Will the office automatically know?
Should I still take her brother to the appointment since I already took the day off work? Last time Carlos had one cavity and Amerie asked him what having a cavity feels like.
She will never experience having a cavity.
She will never experience having a cavity filled.
The cavities in her body now are from bullets, and they can never be filled.
What if she had asked to use the bathroom in the hall a few minutes prior to the gunman entering the room, locking the door, and slaughtering all inside?
Was she one of the first kids in the room to die or one of the last?
These are the things they don’t tell us.
Which of her friends did she see die before her?
Hannah?
Emily?
Both?
Did their blood and brains splatter across her Girl Scout uniform?
She just earned a Fire Safety patch.
What if it got ruined?
There are no patches for school shootings.
Was she practicing writing GIRAFFE the moment he walked in her classroom, barricaded the door and opened fire?
She keeps forgetting the silent “e” at the end.
We studied this past weekend, and now she doesn’t need to take the spelling test on Friday.
None of them will take the spelling test on Friday.
There will be no spelling test on Friday.
Because there is no one to give it.
And no one to take it.
These are the things I will never know:
I will never know at what age she would have started her period.
I will never know if she had wisdom teeth.
(Or if they would have come in crooked.)
I will never know who she spoke to last. Was it the teacher? Was it her table partner, George? She says George is always talking, even during silent reading.
Did she even scream?
She screamed the lyrics to We Don’t Talk About Bruno at 7:58 AM as she hopped out of my car in the circle drive.
She always sings the Dolores part, her sister sings Mirabel and I’m Bruno.
“And I wanted you to know that your bro loves you so
Let it in, let it out, let it rain, let it snow, let it goooooo……..”
Did the killer ever see Encanto?
Could we have sat in the same row of seats, on the same day, munching popcorn?
What if Amerie brushed past him in the aisle? Did she politely say, “Excuse me,” to the boy who would someday blow her eye sockets apart?
Was he chomping on bubble gum as he destroyed them all?
If so, what flavor?
Cinnamon?
Wintergreen?
Was the radio on as he drove to massacre them? Or did he drive in silence?
Was the sun in his eyes as he got out of the car in the parking lot?
Did his pockets hold sunglasses or just ammunition?
These are the things I will never know.
There is laundry in the dryer that is Amerie’s.
Clothes I never need to fold again.
Clothes that are right now warmer than her body.
How will I ever be able to take them out of the dryer and where will I put them if not back in her dresser?
I can never wash clothes in that dryer again.
It will stand silent; a tomb for her pajamas and knee socks.
Her cousin’s graduation party is next month and I already signed her name in the card. Should I cross it out?
That will be the last card I ever sign her name to.
The dog will live longer than she will.
The dog will be 12 next month and she will be eternally 10.
What will the school do with her backpack?
It was brand new this year and she attached her collection of keychains like cherished trophies to its zipper.
A beaded 4 leaf clover she made on St. Patty’s Day.
A red heart from a Walk-a-Thon.
A neon ice cream cone from her friend’s birthday party.
Now there will be no more keychains to attach.
No more trophies.
Surely they can’t throw it out?
Would they throw them all out?
19 backpacks, full of stickered assignments and rainboots, all taken to the dumpster behind the school?
Is there even a dumpster big enough to contain all that life?
These are the things someone else knows:
The moment the semiautomatic rifle was put into his hands--was “Bring Me a Higher Love” playing in the gun store? “Get off my Cloud” by the Rolling Stones? Maybe it was Elton John’s “Rocket Man.”
Did the Outback Oasis salesperson hesitate as they slid him 375 rounds of ammunition?
not my problem my kids are grown and out of school
Or I don’t have kids, so I don’t have to worry about their skulls getting blown across the naptime mat
Or fingers crossed there’s a good guy with an equally powerful gun that will stop this gun if needed
Did they sense any danger or were they more focused on picking that morning’s Raisin Bran out of their teeth?
My Nana used to say, “Pay attention to what whispers, and you won’t have to when it starts screaming.”
But now I know there is a more deafening sound than children screaming.
More horrific even, than automatic rifles on a Tuesday morning.
I beg the world:
Pay attention to what’s screaming today, or be forced to endure the silence that follows."
Note: There is a question whether Amelie’s mother was the author. Please read it under that advisement.
————————————————-
That was truly one of the most wrenching things I've ever read in my whole long life. May Amerie's mother and all who mourn somehow, someday find peace. Thank you for sharing it, Christine.
I've posted this as well along with the comment that whether or not Amelie's mother, or another mother, wrote it is irrelevant because it expresses the deep pain that all of the Uvalde parents, mother and fathers, are experiencing. And all of the pain that parents of children in other school massacres experience and probably will experience for the rest of their lives.
Wow....so heart wrenching. Is there a way I can share this. Yesterday, my ex-classmate posted a rant from a black man defending the second amendment. Neither he nor she understands that we can ban assault weapons and large magazines and people can still have their guns for hunting, target shooting, and defending their home. We can also take gun ownership more seriously with requirements for buying one. I took it on, of course, and mentioned at the end of my rant that parents had to provide DNA to ID torn up bodies. I wanted to say something about being so-called pro-life and isn't Jesus about love, but didn't.
The person that shared with me pulled it from Facebook stream that has been focused on Uvalde. So I do not know. My sharing is because my take is that any one of the parents perhaps could have written it if their thoughts now about their children fell onto paper. Same as with Sandy Hook families….Parkland families ………….
My perspective is that material is authentic or not. If Amerie's mother said she didn't write it -- that is the answer. I do not understand your logic -- it could be by someone else's mother?
And the list keeps on getting eternally longer. Innocent blood will forever flow until those who are so uncaring or just selfish are themselves affected to the same extent as so many parents already have. There is a secret that some of us realize. Such happens daily as careless gun owners lose their children every day. Of course we rarely hear of it because the loss is scattered singularly across this huge land but with so many guns in the hands of careless people, innocents still die.
I don't understand why it matters who wrote it. The content and the feeling express what every parent of a child murdered in a school mass shooting is undoubtedly experiencing.
I concur that the content expresses deep grief. But facts matter, as readers of HCR know very well, since she documents every Letter with verifiable sources.
There are different versions about whether it was indeed Amerie's mother who wrote it and whether she took it down from social media or whether she requested her name not be used in sharing what she wrote. Unless and until a trusted source presents the facts of the situation, we can only just appreciate the power of the content and the pain it expresses.
#ucker Carlson thinks gun control is about Democrats quaking in their boots, afraid of gun owners coming after them because they know they are an illegitimate government?!?!?! I wish someone could/would go on his show and read what this grieving mother has written, so that his audience could see what the desire for sensible gun control is really about. The overwhelming majority of Americans, including people of ALL political persuasions, want sensible gun controls. When will the influencers on Fox Entertainment stop spreading hateful, hurtful lies to incite anger and resentment, and start treating their audience with the respect they deserve?
A lawyer friend of mine framed gun ownership under property law. It’s an argument I had not heard of yet. “I may own a cat and leave it in my backyard, but I have no right to own a Tiger. And I have no right have a Tiger loose in my backyard.”
So haunting and chilling Christine, but necessary. Like the PBS Newshour segment last night with David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart ( https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/brooks-and-capehart-on-the-wave-of-gun-violence-in-america ) where Jonathan said, sadly, that the only thing that may make a difference in response of legislators, gun owners, citizens, gun organizations, etc, is to have photos of the children, or what is left of the children after being hit by bullets that explode in their bodies (see 60 Minutes last Sunday ( https://www.cbsnews.com/video/60minutes-2022-05-29/#x ) such that they cannot be identified. Their parents have to give DNA samples to identify them. Appalling that we allow these weapons of war to be used against students, movie-goers, grocery store shoppers, concert attendees, churche members, doctors office workers and patients, newspaper offices, nightclubs, etc etc etc. Shall we harden all of these venues: it's not just schools?
MaryPat, Barbara (on this chain of exchanges) has stated that she learned on FB that the letter was not written by Amerie's mother. Misinformation and Disinformation spreads faster than the truth. From my point of view, it is best to know the facts before passing the letter on. While its authenticity may seem unimportant at this moment, our civil society has been invaded by alternate realities, a Big Lie (and many other lies) have destabilized our country.
“...how vulnerable is the whole texture of facts in which we spend our daily life; it is always in danger of being perforated by single lies or torn to shreds by the organized lying of groups, nations, or classes...” (Hannah Arendt, “Lying in Politics: Reflections on The Pentagon Papers.”)
Copy and paste it on your computer, save that document, print it out. Then send it to you Congressional reps, all of them. That’s what I’m doing. Or copy and put in an email. HIT SEND
Thanks to the mom who constructed her thoughts to share with the world. To use her new and unwanted role as a parent of a slaughtered child, I grieve with her and am grateful she had the courage to write this. And thank you Christine for adding this to our comment section today. I will carry these words with a heavy heart and more resolve to be a part of the change.
Thank you for sharing. It is heartbreaking no matter who wrote it and I think captures the pain of grief and desolation that comes from senseless deaths.
Christine, Why don't you check on FB and with your friend about the letter's authenticity? That is the source of Barbara's comment. If it is inauthentic, you know what to do.
I am no longer a Facebook user, Fern. The person that shared it used the title that I posted. “written by a mom of the victims of Uvalde victims”. That was from Facebook stream also. I see names in the body of letter but did not specify which parent wrote it.
No logic used. I said that It felt it was something written by a parent that experienced personally the particular tragedy of school shooting. The words moved me. In fact, I had no words after reading it. The roosters came to roost.
Thanks, Christine. You know I'm a hawk on this. Our civic society is coming apart by alternative realities and foundationally destabilized by THE BIG LIE and many other lies. I haven't been loosened by it, tightened up even more is the 'truth' of it. Salud, friend.
Heather Cox Richardson PhD gets a Letters from an American Nobel for the power of her vital summation, her useful detail and her accuracy and for her succinctness tonight. This is a midnight masterpiece.
Sandy. I wanted to post something about the Uvalde massacre upon which Professor Richardson continues to inform us. Which is so important in keeping this from fading to a fleeting memory. I received this from a friend yesterday. Apparently it is circulating but is first time I saw it. A letter from a mother. So…..so wrenching. Talk about a mother’s truth….. we must continue to honor the families…and do what we must to protect our children of the world as we raise them.
From Facebook/ shared with me.
“…written by a mom of one of the Uvalde victims:”
"The chicken soup in her thermos stayed hot all day while her body grew cold.
She never had a chance to eat the baloney and cheese sandwich. I got up 10 minutes early to cut the crust off a sandwich that will never be eaten.
Should I call and cancel her dental appointment next Wednesday? Will the office automatically know?
Should I still take her brother to the appointment since I already took the day off work? Last time Carlos had one cavity and Amerie asked him what having a cavity feels like.
She will never experience having a cavity.
She will never experience having a cavity filled.
The cavities in her body now are from bullets, and they can never be filled.
What if she had asked to use the bathroom in the hall a few minutes prior to the gunman entering the room, locking the door, and slaughtering all inside?
Was she one of the first kids in the room to die or one of the last?
These are the things they don’t tell us.
Which of her friends did she see die before her?
Hannah?
Emily?
Both?
Did their blood and brains splatter across her Girl Scout uniform?
She just earned a Fire Safety patch.
What if it got ruined?
There are no patches for school shootings.
Was she practicing writing GIRAFFE the moment he walked in her classroom, barricaded the door and opened fire?
She keeps forgetting the silent “e” at the end.
We studied this past weekend, and now she doesn’t need to take the spelling test on Friday.
None of them will take the spelling test on Friday.
There will be no spelling test on Friday.
Because there is no one to give it.
And no one to take it.
These are the things I will never know:
I will never know at what age she would have started her period.
I will never know if she had wisdom teeth.
(Or if they would have come in crooked.)
I will never know who she spoke to last. Was it the teacher? Was it her table partner, George? She says George is always talking, even during silent reading.
Did she even scream?
She screamed the lyrics to We Don’t Talk About Bruno at 7:58 AM as she hopped out of my car in the circle drive.
She always sings the Dolores part, her sister sings Mirabel and I’m Bruno.
“And I wanted you to know that your bro loves you so
Let it in, let it out, let it rain, let it snow, let it goooooo……..”
Did the killer ever see Encanto?
Could we have sat in the same row of seats, on the same day, munching popcorn?
What if Amerie brushed past him in the aisle? Did she politely say, “Excuse me,” to the boy who would someday blow her eye sockets apart?
Was he chomping on bubble gum as he destroyed them all?
If so, what flavor?
Cinnamon?
Wintergreen?
Was the radio on as he drove to massacre them? Or did he drive in silence?
Was the sun in his eyes as he got out of the car in the parking lot?
Did his pockets hold sunglasses or just ammunition?
These are the things I will never know.
There is laundry in the dryer that is Amerie’s.
Clothes I never need to fold again.
Clothes that are right now warmer than her body.
How will I ever be able to take them out of the dryer and where will I put them if not back in her dresser?
I can never wash clothes in that dryer again.
It will stand silent; a tomb for her pajamas and knee socks.
Her cousin’s graduation party is next month and I already signed her name in the card. Should I cross it out?
That will be the last card I ever sign her name to.
The dog will live longer than she will.
The dog will be 12 next month and she will be eternally 10.
What will the school do with her backpack?
It was brand new this year and she attached her collection of keychains like cherished trophies to its zipper.
A beaded 4 leaf clover she made on St. Patty’s Day.
A red heart from a Walk-a-Thon.
A neon ice cream cone from her friend’s birthday party.
Now there will be no more keychains to attach.
No more trophies.
Surely they can’t throw it out?
Would they throw them all out?
19 backpacks, full of stickered assignments and rainboots, all taken to the dumpster behind the school?
Is there even a dumpster big enough to contain all that life?
These are the things someone else knows:
The moment the semiautomatic rifle was put into his hands--was “Bring Me a Higher Love” playing in the gun store? “Get off my Cloud” by the Rolling Stones? Maybe it was Elton John’s “Rocket Man.”
Did the Outback Oasis salesperson hesitate as they slid him 375 rounds of ammunition?
not my problem my kids are grown and out of school
Or I don’t have kids, so I don’t have to worry about their skulls getting blown across the naptime mat
Or fingers crossed there’s a good guy with an equally powerful gun that will stop this gun if needed
Did they sense any danger or were they more focused on picking that morning’s Raisin Bran out of their teeth?
My Nana used to say, “Pay attention to what whispers, and you won’t have to when it starts screaming.”
But now I know there is a more deafening sound than children screaming.
More horrific even, than automatic rifles on a Tuesday morning.
I beg the world:
Pay attention to what’s screaming today, or be forced to endure the silence that follows."
May we fill that kind of silence with Light.
Unita!
Note: There is a question whether Amelie’s mother was the author. Please read it under that advisement.
————————————————-
That was truly one of the most wrenching things I've ever read in my whole long life. May Amerie's mother and all who mourn somehow, someday find peace. Thank you for sharing it, Christine.
Yes. Wrenching. Profoundly so. Impressive. Important. Good. Sandy
I've posted this as well along with the comment that whether or not Amelie's mother, or another mother, wrote it is irrelevant because it expresses the deep pain that all of the Uvalde parents, mother and fathers, are experiencing. And all of the pain that parents of children in other school massacres experience and probably will experience for the rest of their lives.
Wow....so heart wrenching. Is there a way I can share this. Yesterday, my ex-classmate posted a rant from a black man defending the second amendment. Neither he nor she understands that we can ban assault weapons and large magazines and people can still have their guns for hunting, target shooting, and defending their home. We can also take gun ownership more seriously with requirements for buying one. I took it on, of course, and mentioned at the end of my rant that parents had to provide DNA to ID torn up bodies. I wanted to say something about being so-called pro-life and isn't Jesus about love, but didn't.
Amerie's mother did not write this--she has gone on social media to say it is fake. Nevertheless, whoever wrote it, it is indeed heartbreaking.
Barbara, I have been trying to check the authenticity of the letter. Where did you learn that it is allegedly fake? Thanks
The person that shared with me pulled it from Facebook stream that has been focused on Uvalde. So I do not know. My sharing is because my take is that any one of the parents perhaps could have written it if their thoughts now about their children fell onto paper. Same as with Sandy Hook families….Parkland families ………….
My perspective is that material is authentic or not. If Amerie's mother said she didn't write it -- that is the answer. I do not understand your logic -- it could be by someone else's mother?
And the list keeps on getting eternally longer. Innocent blood will forever flow until those who are so uncaring or just selfish are themselves affected to the same extent as so many parents already have. There is a secret that some of us realize. Such happens daily as careless gun owners lose their children every day. Of course we rarely hear of it because the loss is scattered singularly across this huge land but with so many guns in the hands of careless people, innocents still die.
I just posed the question to Snopes.com but don't know if they'll move on it or notify me what they may find.
In a private FB group that I am in. But I saw on FB in more than one place
Thanks, Barbara. I am not on FB. A disclaimer about it hasn't crossed my eyes yet.
I don't understand why it matters who wrote it. The content and the feeling express what every parent of a child murdered in a school mass shooting is undoubtedly experiencing.
I concur that the content expresses deep grief. But facts matter, as readers of HCR know very well, since she documents every Letter with verifiable sources.
Agree except that the mom was requesting that her name not be associated with it (at least that is what I read)
There are different versions about whether it was indeed Amerie's mother who wrote it and whether she took it down from social media or whether she requested her name not be used in sharing what she wrote. Unless and until a trusted source presents the facts of the situation, we can only just appreciate the power of the content and the pain it expresses.
Interesting.
No tight to mock a comment in false prose.
Not kind to mock the mother. Compose the Broadway play, the screenplay, do not lie about the mother. That’s evil.
Thanks for that correction, Barbara.
#ucker Carlson thinks gun control is about Democrats quaking in their boots, afraid of gun owners coming after them because they know they are an illegitimate government?!?!?! I wish someone could/would go on his show and read what this grieving mother has written, so that his audience could see what the desire for sensible gun control is really about. The overwhelming majority of Americans, including people of ALL political persuasions, want sensible gun controls. When will the influencers on Fox Entertainment stop spreading hateful, hurtful lies to incite anger and resentment, and start treating their audience with the respect they deserve?
A lawyer friend of mine framed gun ownership under property law. It’s an argument I had not heard of yet. “I may own a cat and leave it in my backyard, but I have no right to own a Tiger. And I have no right have a Tiger loose in my backyard.”
Heartbreaking.
So haunting and chilling Christine, but necessary. Like the PBS Newshour segment last night with David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart ( https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/brooks-and-capehart-on-the-wave-of-gun-violence-in-america ) where Jonathan said, sadly, that the only thing that may make a difference in response of legislators, gun owners, citizens, gun organizations, etc, is to have photos of the children, or what is left of the children after being hit by bullets that explode in their bodies (see 60 Minutes last Sunday ( https://www.cbsnews.com/video/60minutes-2022-05-29/#x ) such that they cannot be identified. Their parents have to give DNA samples to identify them. Appalling that we allow these weapons of war to be used against students, movie-goers, grocery store shoppers, concert attendees, churche members, doctors office workers and patients, newspaper offices, nightclubs, etc etc etc. Shall we harden all of these venues: it's not just schools?
Brilliant. Poetry. When In disgrace with fortune and men’s eyes, I all alone beweep my outcast state...
This is so moving. Thanks for posting. So many questions, with no answers.
No. There are answers.
Agree. No sweeping it under the debris.
Beyond heartbreaking. Should be required reading in Congress and the Senate. Daily. Christine do you have a link for it so we can share?
MaryPat, Barbara (on this chain of exchanges) has stated that she learned on FB that the letter was not written by Amerie's mother. Misinformation and Disinformation spreads faster than the truth. From my point of view, it is best to know the facts before passing the letter on. While its authenticity may seem unimportant at this moment, our civil society has been invaded by alternate realities, a Big Lie (and many other lies) have destabilized our country.
“...how vulnerable is the whole texture of facts in which we spend our daily life; it is always in danger of being perforated by single lies or torn to shreds by the organized lying of groups, nations, or classes...” (Hannah Arendt, “Lying in Politics: Reflections on The Pentagon Papers.”)
That's my case MaryPat.
Amen.
Copy and paste it on your computer, save that document, print it out. Then send it to you Congressional reps, all of them. That’s what I’m doing. Or copy and put in an email. HIT SEND
Thanks to the mom who constructed her thoughts to share with the world. To use her new and unwanted role as a parent of a slaughtered child, I grieve with her and am grateful she had the courage to write this. And thank you Christine for adding this to our comment section today. I will carry these words with a heavy heart and more resolve to be a part of the change.
Thank you for sharing. It is heartbreaking no matter who wrote it and I think captures the pain of grief and desolation that comes from senseless deaths.
Christine, Why don't you check on FB and with your friend about the letter's authenticity? That is the source of Barbara's comment. If it is inauthentic, you know what to do.
I am no longer a Facebook user, Fern. The person that shared it used the title that I posted. “written by a mom of the victims of Uvalde victims”. That was from Facebook stream also. I see names in the body of letter but did not specify which parent wrote it.
No logic used. I said that It felt it was something written by a parent that experienced personally the particular tragedy of school shooting. The words moved me. In fact, I had no words after reading it. The roosters came to roost.
Thanks, Christine. You know I'm a hawk on this. Our civic society is coming apart by alternative realities and foundationally destabilized by THE BIG LIE and many other lies. I haven't been loosened by it, tightened up even more is the 'truth' of it. Salud, friend.
A masterpiece. Exquisite pain, exquisite prose poetry, and prose... Sandy
Heartbreaking.
My head is bowed, Christine. Unita!
Thank you for posting this, Christine.
Indeed it is!
👍👍👍Absolutely!
Yes! Thank you Sandy.
Agreed!
Absolutely true, this is a masterpiece.
Well said, Sandy Lewis. I concur.