Bearing witness.

[nwhiker]

This is almost unbearable.

My Mother Is Screaming.

I did not want to read it. I did, because I think, at this point, that one of the most important things we can do is bear witness.

The day of Sandy Hook remains in my mind was of the worst days ever, up there with days of direct personal grief. I wanted to run away and hide, and hold my children tight. And I did. But I also remember looking. Looking at the photos of each child, and reading their name. It was all I could do myself, that bearing witness. Yeah, I could put money and time towards electing people who might change the way guns are obtained in this country, and all that, but on a personal level, I couldn't leave flowers, so I read their names.

The teens killed in Florida, the ones in Santa Fe Texas. I sent money. I wrote my legislators. I did what little I could. And, again, despite not wanting to make them real, I read their names, looked at their pictures. They lived. They mattered.

And now I feel the same way with these stories of abuse and assault. I don't want to see them. I was never raped. I was assaulted, I was groped, I was touched, I was emotionally abused in an event I only told my husband about a few months ago. But nothing that rises to the level of some of the frightening systematic abuse that many women have endured. I don't want to see it. I can't stop it. I can send money, and work to get good people elected, people who may be able to help in the long run.

All I can truly do on a personal level, is read their stories. Their pain matters, and I want to acknowledge their existence and their suffering, and hopefully their survival.

I see you, Donna. I hear you. I am so very sorry.

And fuck you and may you rot in a hell I don't believe in, Susan Collins.