"Are you ok?" (12:31 pm)
"Please answer me." (12:33 pm)
"I love you." (12:34 pm)
"You are my whole heart." (12:37 pm)
"I love you. I am so proud of you." (12:41 pm)
"Follow the directions of teachers and police. Stay with your classmates." (12:45 pm)
"Please stay safe." (12:46 pm)
"Come home to me." (12:49 pm)
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He called at 2:27 from the bus to let me know he was on his way home.
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With the slaughter of elementary schoolchildren and their teachers in a Texas elementary school weighing heavy on my heart, I sent my senior to school this Wednesday morning and prayed (as ever) for a safe day. Safe. Not from the bullying that he's endured daily. Safe. Not from the shame of being ostracized. Safe. Not from the self-destruction of anxiety and depression.
Safe.
Alive...whole...intact...safe.
From bullets.
I prayed as I snapped his photo. I prayed as I kissed him goodbye. I prayed as I closed the door and turned to my youngest's concerns. I prayed, the silent all-encompassing internal whisper of prayer of every mother of school-aged children on Wednesday.
Be safe. Stay safe.
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At 12:29, as I nursed my youngest down for a nap, both mind and body exhausted from a morning spent entertaining his every toddler whim and whimsy, my phone wishfully on silent-mode, I received a simultaneous robo-call and email:
"WHRHS is currently in a lockdown due to investigation of a threat received over the phone. We do not believe the threat is credible. Out of an abundance of caution, police are on sight investigating the threat. An update will be sent at the conclusion of the lockdown."
I have never been more scared.
That call.
That email.
There is a sudden blackness that rushes through. A hollowing. The prayer goes silent.
And from the depths, a clawing urgency...instinct firing and burning off reasoning and logic.
I held one son as he dozed, in terror for the other.
Immediately I sent my eldest a text. And another. And another.
Desperate silence.
I have never been more scared.
Social media forums burst into life as other parents panicked and queried.
Another message was shared by the police department:
"The police department is currently conducting an investigation into a reported threat at WHRHS. The school is in lockdown and there is adequate police personnel on the scene. We ask that parents DO NOT respond to the high school at this time. More information will follow."
I left my youngest asleep and pulled out every piece of tech, tuning in to every source and forum I could pull up. And finally...a breath...as we saw a few students and staff begin to comment in the threads to reassure us that they were safe.
"I am in school now. Kids are taking this seriously and we know what to do. We are still in classrooms."
"Officers with rifles are coming in room by room."
"Our classroom checked twice by 5-6 armed officers."
"Down on the floor in the dark."
And a swirling cesspool of fresh terror as parents shared text replies from their children:
"Gun in the bathroom."
"School was breached."
"Might be a bomb threat."
"I hear walkie-talkies...there's a shooter on the football field?"
I have never been more scared.
Volume up. Notifications on. Ringer at max.
My phone still silent.
Staring at those words on one screen and then another.
It is May 2022. And we, we parents, we know in a way that we didn't before, that there is no transparency offered by school or police. We know that what we are reading, others have read. We know that parents on Tuesday read similar words even as their children lay injured and dying and dead.
We know.
The comments flew by. Questions. Answers. Reassurances. Rumors.
And we waited.
I waited.
Safe. Please. Safe. Please. Safe. Please.
The endless refrain whispered as my mind went to dark places and prepared for the worst. As the facts and figures of school shootings I'd read about re-matriculated as data points to sort through and make sense of.
Safe. Obey. Please. Obey. Safe.
Splitting in two as one part handled every-parent fear, and the other took over the fear of parents of autistic children, who know full well that the statistics are not in our favor...our children injured...killed...by law enforcement because of their "unnatural" responses to unfamiliar faces and directions. Our children restrained, tasered, asphyxiated, shot. Our children killed by those sent to protect them.
Obey. Please. Safe. Please.
I have never been more scared.
My mind flickered through all the training I've done with him:
Stay calm
Answer direct questions.
State your name and diagnosis.
Ask for assistance.
My memory, though, flickered through every time he's frozen in place or gone non-verbal or flailed, aggressively, sensory-seeking and desperate to find an anchor.
I have never been more scared.
Two hours, roughly. From the time my phone vibrated to the time he called. Two hours in which my world stopped...froze...waited in emptiness...in hollowness. Two hours of desperate scrolling and texting and waiting and waiting and waiting...to breathe.
It is May 2022. And we, we parents, we know our children are never safe. Not in their classrooms. Not in their locker rooms. Not in their cafeterias...hallways...bathrooms.
Not in this country. No, not here.
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