Whenever I learn about a school shooting, it’s usually while I’m doing the dishes. One kid is in the bath, the other one is in the shower. It’s usually almost bedtime.
Maybe it was a good day, and we went out for ice cream after school and played nicely when we got home and ate our dinner with no complaining and started the bedtime routine with not very much complaining.
Maybe it was a hard day and they got into the car in a huff about this or that and I had a hard day too and I tried but I didn’t listen well enough and we didn’t get any ice cream after school and there was too much homework and nobody to play with the little guy and dinner was too spicy and we all just wanted to go to bed and doing the dishes was a relief from the relentless complaining.
And I start the dishes and put my phone on the windowsill and put the news on and there’s that red bar saying this many children and teachers dead and the tears come fast every time. Every time there’s a school shooting and someone says “School is supposed to be a place parents feel totally comfortable leaving their kids,” it feels increasingly disingenuous — every time.
But then that other line inevitably comes up: “These parents will never pick their kids up from school again,” and the vision of the 14 or 18 or 24 hearts stopped, and it is genuine again. Do I leave the dishes for the night and tell the kids they’ve been in the bath and shower long enough and now it’s time to read? Do I let the little one pick out his own jammies, even though he will pick the fleece ones and it’s a hot night? Do I still check the older child’s hair to see if she really scrubbed her scalp, got a good lather going? Oily hair is new to her, and coaching someone in how to wash it is new to me.
A sign of puberty to come, which I had been dreading, but now I know: Please, let it come, let it arrive and stay in all of its messy, confusing, angry, joyous glory. Let them grow into adults who get ice cream after work sometimes and resent their mother for the times she didn’t listen well enough and remember to call each other the day after their birthdays, and make food that is now spicy and get their hearts broken and find community.
And yes, we can read another page. We can read another 100 pages. We can read the whole rest of this book, and then another and another, a whole series even, all night and into tomorrow, because you are here with me and that feels like a miracle.
Kimberly Hake
Leyden