The TRUTH About Motherhood

Category: News

Marriage Equality and Being Human in America
Today, marriage equality became legislation nation wide. Today we got one step closer to human equality.
According to the Oxford dictionary a Human Being: A man, woman, or child of the species Homo sapiens, distinguished from other animals by superior mental development, power of articulate speech and upright stance.
That is all it takes to qualify us as human beings.
This is what differentiates us from the animals. It does not say that there are varying degrees of human beings. Man, woman and child homo sapiens are all equally human. Not one is better or more superior in mind or make up because of race, creed, color, religion or sexual preference. We are all, at our core, human beings. If everyone accepted that, the world would be a more peaceful and beautiful place to live.
I am a 42-year-old, heterosexual, Latina woman which in the eyes of some make me less than. I am nearing middle-age, I am first generation Mexican-American and I have a vagina. Old, brown and vagina to some. But not to me. To me, I am the strongest woman you will ever meet. I don’t stop and I don’t even believe in the word can’t. Nothing is impossible. Your underestimation of me, of anyone, is your problem not mine because I will prove you wrong every damn time. I’m the underdog and I have nowhere to go but up. Be prepared to fight because I won’t give up and I think that is how most minorities feel.
This morning, I wrote a piece at Latina.Mom.me about Donald Trump’s racist statements about the Mexican people and South American immigrants. He said Mexico is not sending it’s best and those Mexican immigrants that come to the United States are criminals, rapists and drug lords. That pisses me off. I am personally fucking offended.
Maybe he should read a book because, in case he missed it, this country was founded by immigrants. This country was built on the blood, sweat, tears and backs of immigrants. Immigrants from Mexico and South America are no more criminal than the immigrants who landed on Plymouth rock, in fact, maybe less so. My ancestors didn’t murder the Native Indians.
Most of my family were immigrants; none of them were rapists, drug lords or criminals. Most of the people fleeing from South America are coming to provide better lives for their children. They are good, hardworking people. They are victims of their circumstances. They are running from the drug lords. And Mr. Trump as you talk of building a wall on the Mexican American border to keep Latinos out, just remember most of the area you want to build a wall around, once belonged to Mexico. They didn’t land on the border, the fucking border landed on them.
Then I see the news about Dylann Roof, white racist guy who decides that it’s his personal right to go kill a bunch of innocent African Americans at church. He just walked in there like he was an exterminator and it was his God given right to murder human beings because he does not feel that their life is equal in value to his because they are black.
Let me remind all of you racist assholes who share this twisted mentality; Americans brought the Africans to the United States as slaves for free labor. The Africans were stolen from their homes, separated from their families, raped, beaten, humiliated and dehumanized before they were worked to death in the fields like animals. They were treated as disposable labor and property, not people. I’ve actually heard people in the south tell a black person to “go back to Africa!” Are you kidding me? They didn’t want to be here in the first place and now you tell them to go back? African Americans are Americans and bottom line, they are human beings. If you can’t treat them as such, maybe you should leave? The people of color are having a bad week. This has to change, soon.
But thankfully, today one injustice was undone. Today marriage was made legal across the country and no one can refuse anyone that right to be married. The world we live in changed for the better today. It’s not just about a wedding and a party with the person you love, it’s about the right to be seen as a spouse in the eyes of the law. It’s about being able to share insurance, be one another’s next of kin, be at the bedside of the one you love because you are legally seen as family. It’s about not having your entire life undone on top of losing your partner. It’s about being free to love and live as a family unit. It’s about parental rights and medical say so. It’s about humanizing the homosexual community.
In response, one middle-aged white man, Rick Scarborough, a christian fundamentalist and former southern Baptist pastor, threatened to set himself on fire if Supreme Court ruled in favor of same sex marriage. I ask you , does anyone have a match this asshole can borrow?
In other news, have the country is threatening to move to Canada to escape the marriage equality hell in a fate of the United States, apparently this morons know nothing of world politics because Canada has had legalized same sex marriage for a decade.
The bottom line is that all of us, the weak, poor, huddled masses… the browns, the blacks, the Jews, the trangendered, the homosexuals and those of us with vaginas we are just as human as the middle-aged white men who hate us with such fervor that they want to see us eradicated from their existence.
Today is a day of celebration. We have made one tiny step for human equality. Let’s keep fighting and remember that we all deserve the same, respect and rights because we are all equal in our humanity. Today, love wins! Today, the world became a better place for our children.
What are your thoughts on marriage equality?

2015/06/26
Why I Admire Bruce Jenner
I watched the Bruce Jenner and Diane Sawyer interview on Friday night.
I was surprisingly moved. I was sure I would be making Kardashian jokes but his message touched me because when your insides don’t match your outsides, life is hell. Haven’t we all had those days, maybe even those years. But imagine having to do it for your entire life? It must have been torture. Living a lie and hiding the real you from those that you love the most.
I admit, I mocked Bruce Jenner when I heard the rumors of him transitioning into a woman but it was because I didn’t understand his story. I’d never heard it. If just assumed that Kris had finally emasculated him one too many times and Bruce said, “Fuck it. Just cut “them” off I don’t want them anymore!” Then I heard him tell his story.
Bruce Jenner’s insides don’t match his outsides and they never have. This is something I know a little bit about. Over the years , I’ve spent a lot of years trying to hide who I am on the inside from people on the outside. Not for the same reasons as Bruce but sometimes I’d be so damn, unfoundedly moody that I was afraid of what people would do if they ever saw the real me. This part I totally get.
When I heard Bruce admit that he had told his previous wives of his lifelong feeling of living in the wrong body and had even began transitioning back in the 80s, before he met and fell in love with Kris, all I felt for this man was compassion and sadness. He was desperate to make his insides match his outsides. Don’t we all deserve to feel comfortable in our own skin? God, do I get that. But like most women, Kris ignored his warnings and thought she could change him even though he was in the middle of transitioning. He was serious about becoming the real him…her.
Bruce put off becoming who he really was because he loved Kris and when more children came along, he felt he owed it to them, as their dad, to be their “dad”. Bruce always put himself last and it almost killed him. He felt hopeless and desperate. There was even a moment after he told his family and decided to go for it that the paparazzi ridiculed him so badly that he went home from a would-be surgery appointment and instead considered just ending it all. The feeling of loneliness and utter desperation must have been overwhelming.
Finally, probably at the worst possible time because there was a giant glaring Kardashian spotlight on him, he took the leap of faith and decided that he needed to become who he truly is before he dies. He needed to become the woman he’s always been on the inside. He decided to take all the pain and consequences to become himself.
I’ll say it. I was wrong. Bruce Jenner is a brave, strong and amazing person. He loves his family so much that he always puts his own happiness on the back burner. If that doesn’t scream “woman” I don’t know what does. His interview with Diane Sawyer has forever altered the way I’ll think about Bruce Jenner. I don’t think of him as less of a man because of his courageous transition. I think of him as more of a person and I can’t wait to see what the real Bruce, happy and free to be completely herself, looks like and does with this second chance.
The bottom line is that we all have parts of us that we keep just for ourselves. I don’t think anyone’s insides match their outsides all the time but I think we at least deserve to feel comfortable in the skin we live in some of the time. Every day shouldn’t be a bad day that we have to face alone.
What do you think of Bruce Jenner and his transition?

2015/04/27
Fear and Ignorance is What’s Killing Black Men
Yet another African American man, Walter Scott, has been shot dead in the streets. Hearing this saddens me but seeing the video infuriates me. How many people have to die before we change what we will accept from law enforcement, from the justice system and from ourselves?
A 50-year-old black man was pulled over for a broken taillight in North Charleston, South Carolina. The officer, Michael T.Slager, tasered Walter Scott who had warrants out for his arrest for not paying child support. Scott ran after being tasered. The police officer followed in pursuit on foot and then shot the unarmed man 8 times, in the back. Would he have done the same if it had been a 50-year-old white man?
Then, it appears from the video, that the officer drops the taser by Scott. The same taser gun that the officer said the man had on his person; the very reason he felt threatened enough to shoot him. To add insult to grave injury, Walter Scott was left lying on the ground; face down, bleeding out while not one of the officers attempted to perform CPR on him. Officer Slager is being charged with murder. I’m glad. Still, there is no explanation for these events that can make any of this right for me. If seeing is believing, I’ve seen enough.
My belief is this white cops are shooting black suspects because they are afraid of them. I don’t know if it’s because of some residual guilt over the inhumane way that most Caucasians have treated African Americans throughout history, instilled racism from their upbringing or just plain old ignorance that allows them to treat black people as less than and still sleep at night. Whatever the reason, I believe that some white people are genuinely afraid of black people simply because of the color of their skin.
On the flip-side, I believe African Americans run from Caucasian officers because they are afraid of them too; afraid that their fear will cause them to overreact and use excessive force.Fear that their lack of respect for their basic human rights could put them in imminent danger. If history tells us anything, they’re not wrong. We’ve seen it happen. It’s not unimaginable. This is just my theory.
How many more Walter Scott incidents can we tolerate?
Everything about this sickens me, however, it no longer shocks me. This is nothing new. The only thing that’s changed is that everyone has a camera with a phone that takes video and social media allows us to share these stories instantaneously with remarkable reach. This has been happening for centuries and anyone who believes it hasn’t is fooling themselves. We are being forced to face the reality of our brutality. You can no longer be blissfully ignorant about the world because the truth is caught on video and shown to us. To say you didn’t know it was happening today, is to be a liar.
I grew up in an African American neighborhood and in my world, this is how the cops have always treated African Americans. I’ve seen it with my own eyes. The world is an unfair place where fear causes men to do unspeakable acts in the name of self-preservation. Fear is a very effective motivator, even when it’s completely unfounded.
I’m not saying that all cops are racist or bad people. Quite the opposite. There are many law enforcement officers who risk their life every single day to serve and protect their community but there are a few small men with narrow minds, who function on fear and power and have guns. These are the ones who make me afraid. The ones who can be more compassionate to a dog in the street than a dying man lying in front of them. Those who lack humanity and human compassion scare me the most.
We know there is a problem. No human being should be shot dead in the street. I don’t care what color, creed, race, religion or sexual preference you have. We need to change. How many mothers have to lose their children? How many children have to lose their fathers? How many lives have to be snuffed out before it all adds up to too much?
In my book, one dead human being in the street is too many. We have to stop letting fear and ignorance govern our reactions. Collectively as the human race, we need to say no more and develop a zero tolerance policy for the brutality and abuse of power that we currently accept as status quo. This is unacceptable. This is not the world that I want for my children. Our children deserve better.
What are your thoughts on the Walter Scott shooting?
2015/04/08
Dad Refuses to Abandon Son with Down Syndrome, Mom Divorces Him
In Armenia, a baby boy was born with Down syndrome. His father, Samuel Forrest heard his newborn son’s cries, as he excitedly waited outside of his wife’s delivery room to meet him. But the new father was not immediately invited into the room. Instead, this happened.
“This pediatrician walks out of the room with a little bundle — that was Leo,” Forrest said. “She had his face covered up and hospital authorities wouldn’t let me see him or my wife. When the doctor came out, he said ‘there’s a real problem with your son.’
Forrest was told that Leo was diagnosed with Down syndrome.
He was shocked, as any parent would be to get such unexpected news, but he held his son and all he felt was the overwhelming, unconditional love that we all feel when we hold our newborn for the first time. Of course there is a time of grieving for what you’ve lost and a time for processing, you have to wrap your mind around this new reality; what you get not matching up with what you’ve expected.
Next, he walked into his wife’s hospital room, holding his precious newborn son, beaming with new father pride and then the other foot dropped. His wife presented him with an ultimatum: if he chose to keep the baby, she would divorce him. She had already discussed it with the doctors and decided to abandon the child to an orphanage, a practice that is accepted in Armenia. To me, that feels like throwing children away like garbage.
Forrest didn’t want to lose his wife. He loves her. But he just could not find it in his heart to abandon Leo. He refused to give his son up. Wasting no time, a week later, Leo’s mother filed for divorce and left them both.
Now, this dynamic father/son duo are alone in the world and need a lot of help. Forrest is planning to move back to his native New Zealand so that he can get support from his family and friends.
Forrest was asking for donations to his GoFundMe page, to help cover lost wages so that he can stay home with Leo, at least for the first year. He was hoping to raise $60,000 but when I checked this morning he had raised $272, 787, which will go a long way in insuring that Leo is taken care of.
I hope that when Leo is older and told the story of how the world did not abandon him and his father in their time of need, it will help alleviate some of the sting of the fact that his own mother abandoned him.
As for the mother in this story, I feel sorry for her. She is missing out on the honor of loving and raising her child because she can’t see past his disability. People are more than disabilities and every single child deserves a parent’s devoted and unconditional love. I won’t condemn her because I think living with the guilt of abandoning Leo will be enough of a punishment for her lifetime. I feel sorry for her. She is probably one of the most hated women in the world today thanks to this story going viral.
Someone made the comment that in the United States a woman who found out that her baby had Down syndrome in utero could simply abort the fetus. I guess that is technically true thanks to genetic testing but the question is how many of us would?
It’s not a decision I could make, that’s why I refused genetic testing for Down syndrome with my first two pregnancies because for me, it wouldn’t have made a difference but that is just how my heart chose and it’s easy to sit on my moral high horse when I never actually had to make that decision.
I want honest answers, so comment anonymously if you want to, but what do you really think of the practice of being able to walk away from a baby born with Down syndrome or any other disability?

2015/02/06
Strong Like A Girl #LikeAGirl
” Like a Girl ” what does that even mean? Like a boss? Like your best? Like you? Bigger? Bolder? Brighter? Faster? Harder? Stronger? Longer? Better? I’ve never gotten that phrase and I’ve always hated the negative connotation that is inferred by it. I’m a woman and I love being a woman. I don’t think being a female makes me less, it makes me more.
“Why do people say “grow some balls”? Balls are weak and sensitive. If you wanna be tough, grow a vagina. Those things can take a pounding.”
― Betty White ( Like a girl)
I am the proud mom of two very strong willed, strong minded and strong bodied, amazing girls. Girls who are smart, funny, caring, loving, challenging, athletic, witty, love science and math and give everything they do 110%. They are also beautiful, delicate, stubborn, opinionated, whimsical and 110% girl.

They are two of the fiercest little girls I know. They are everything they want to be and my only wish for them is happiness being their best version of themselves. I never want them to lose the belief that they can do and be anything they want to be. It’s all a matter of working hard and has absolutely NOTHING to do with what is between their legs. Contrary to popular belief, a vagina is not a liability. It’s a mother f*cking miracle.
You see, I’ve never put my girls into a box and I’ve NEVER in my life understood the asinine turn of phrase, “Like a girl” because it makes no sense. Girls grow up to be women. Women grow babies, give birth, hold careers, make homes for their families and hold shit together when the world starts to fall apart. Without women, quite literally, the species would cease to exist. Girls are can do anything boys can do, in most cases, even better because they’ve had to work twice as hard to get it.
The “Like A Girl” campaign as a social experiment to destroy the negative implications of the phrase. That ad was shown during last night’s Super Bowl game.
The video shows grown up men and women being asked to run, throw, and fight like a girl. In each case, they watered it down. They reacted slower, more cartoonish and awkward like. They “dumbed it down”. THEY thought it was funny. I don’t think it’s funny at all, especially when women are doing this. This makes us part of the problem, not the solution.
However, when the producers of the video asked young girls under the age of 10 to run, throw or fight “like a girl” they did it with all of their might. They ran as fast as they could. Fought as hard as they could. Threw as far as they could. They did not undersell themselves because they were doing it as they always believed they could. They had not yet been conditioned and beaten down by society’s stereotypes and become a cartoonish, underwhelming specimen of a woman. They were strong.

As a woman, who survived puberty, we all know that once puberty comes and your body starts to change. Your confidence is shaken. People react to you differently. You cross over from being a kid to being a woman and the expectations change. With breasts, you become shackled with limitations. It is a sad but true fact. Right now, my girls are still at the age where they do everything like no one is watching and there is a quiet strength and beauty in that.
The video bothered me a lot, then again I knew this day was coming. My oldest is about to be 10 and I have worked her entire life to make sure that she NEVER sees “like a girl” in a negative way. I want her to always know and accept that she is as good, as strong, capable and intelligent as any boy. If anything, I want my girls to know they are special because not only can they do every thing that men can do, we can do one thing that they can’t…conceive and give birth to a child. We are stronger in that capacity than any man can ever hope to be because we are the keepers of the world.
I think I’m doing a pretty good job, my girls look completely baffled when I ask them to do anything “like a girl” I have to clarify…just do it the way you do it. I’m pretty proud of that and them. Like a girl should be synonymous with Like a boss because that is how we do it around here.
I think my girls are the two most amazing creatures I know. They are strong, bold and fierce in ways I only wish that I was. I watch them grow in awe and humbled by their spirit. They inspire me to fight harder, to be better to make this world better for them….to make it what they deserve.
What does ” like a girl ” mean in your house?
2015/02/02
Teachers Humiliate Students with Mandatory Poop Inspection: File Under WTF!
Apparently, in Gustine, Texas (wherever the hell that may be) a group of elementary school students were “asked” to lower their pants for a semi-strip search and poop inspection of their tiny tushes on Monday.(OK, I just used the word tushes instead of asses but make no mistake, this is not acceptable or meant to be funny.)
School faculty members told two dozen co-ed students , aged 11, to drop their underwear after continually finding feces on the gym floor.
Students were separated into groups of boys and girls and ordered to “pull down their pants” so administrators could “check if they could find anything.” WHAT.THE.F*CK??? This is not the first time a teacher in Texas has stepped over the line in the pursuit of discipline.
As a mother of a 9-year-old, ordering an 11-year-old prepubescent child to drop their pants for “poop” inspection is not only way out of line, it is humiliating and demeaning and who the fuck are these teachers to be looking at kids’ asses anyway? This is a complete invasion of privacy. Can you say mama’s gonna go bat shit crazy?
Gustine Independent School District Superintendent Ken Baugh acknowledged that making kids “drop their pants” goes too far. However, he said the students were only asked to lower their pants a little to determine who the defecating culprit was. As far as I’m concerned low enough to check for feces is low enough to expose their private parts. His reasoning is about as stupid as saying you had sex just a little…just the tip. Wrong is wrong and if this were my child, I’d be filing charges against these idiots.
I completely understand the frustration the faculty was feeling at finding feces on the floor repeatedly but in no world is inspecting a kid’s ( that you haven’t given birth to) ass for poop or anything else ever an acceptable form of discipline. No matter how annoyed and/or pissed off you may be about random defecation hijinks.
These parents have every right to be irate but I’d be doing more than just attending a school board meeting. I’d be taking the entire school to court, demanding an apology to my child and gathering a group of like minded parents to beat the asses of those teachers responsible. The school humiliated these children, illegally strip searched and invaded their privacy on school grounds, with no officers or parents present. They just did whatever the hell they wanted to. Where are the boundaries? Do these teachers think they are untouchable? They could have done anything to these children while their pants were down and no one was around. We entrust our children to them every day and they have breached that trust in an irreconcilable way.
What would you do if your child was told to strip down for a poop inspection?
2015/01/28
Bigot Mom Fights Against Equal Treatment for Transgender Students
Dear Bigot Mom why are you so opposed to the idea of transgender students being treated equal? I’ve never understood how adults can be mean or uncaring to children but apparently and ironically, bigotry does not discriminate. It’s an equal opportunity hater, even of small children.
Administrators in Lincoln, Nebraska have begun talking to staff about transgender issues so they can better help transgender students; all students. Some parents are worried the district is promoting an “agenda”; a political one.
“The agenda we’re promoting is to help all kids succeed,” said Brenda Leggiardo, LPS coordinator of social workers and counselors. “We have kids who come to us with a whole variety of circumstances, and we need to equitably serve all kids.”
But some people don’t see it that way, Rachel Terry, a parent in the Lincoln Public Schools District, has taken it upon herself to send emails to the other parents saying LPS is promoting a “gender inclusiveness” agenda and asking them to join her at the Oct. 14 school board meeting. HMMMMM? So, am I to assume that she is anti- gender inclusiveness? Is she really asking parents to join her at a school board meeting today to protest EQUALITY?? Bigotry much??? Life is hard enough for anyone who isn’t a healthy, heterosexual Caucasian male. Why make it harder?
“By sidelining academic teacher training and replacing it with social re-engineering, the LPS administration has placed a higher priority on social reformation than on education,” Terry says in a copy of an “introductory speech” prepared for school board members.
As a school board member myself, not in the LPS district, just let me start by saying we welcome any and all concerns to be brought up at board meetings (no matter how ridiculous they may be) so she is perfectly within her rights to present this at the meeting. However, the only agenda that I see is her fear of gender-inclusiveness. What is she afraid of? It’s not contagious?
Surely, she must realize that if a child is bullied or feels like an outcast for being different, their education will suffer. Just because gender is not an issue for her children, it is for some children. Where is her compassion for these children who need a little understanding? I wonder if she has a low threshold of tolerance for those pesky special needs children too?
Her email to other parents included three handouts she said had been provided to LPS staff, including one titled “12 easy steps on the way to gender inclusiveness” that, among other things, advised avoiding “gendered” expressions such as “boys and girls.”
The handout suggests opting for more specific terms such as “calling all readers” or “hey, campers.”
Okay, I am not the parent of a transgendered, gay, bisexual or lesbian child (well, not that I know of, my girls are only 7 and 9 so who knows who they might become and no matter who they choose to love I will love them and want them to be treated equal to every other human being) so I’m not sure how parents of these children feel about using gender non-specific terms? I’d love to hear your thoughts on this subject. I suppose we could all just be called humans or by our own names and that would work.
I do however have a problem with having the terms boys and girls stricken from my vocabulary because to me it feels like taking shit too far. Just like not being able to say Merry Christmas or God bless you when someone sneezes. I feel like I don’t get offended if someone says Happy Kwanza or Happy Hanukkah. I take it as a term of celebration and good will and I am thankful. I get the underlying “meaning” of it. It’s not something I take so literally that it keeps me up at night pondering my existence or my relationship with my own faith. If someone blesses me, I am not offended. I am thankful because, let’s be honest, someone wishing you well is always better than telling you to go somewhere and die or just not giving a damn at all.
I can’t pretend to know how children who are transgendered feel about being called boy or girl. My personal thought would be that, on the inside, they feel like either a boy or a girl because that’s always been the choices we’ve had. I don’t think the problem is with the terms, I think it’s with the labeling. Why not use “boys and girls” when talking to a group and let the child decide which one applies to them without making a fuss about it.
Student Services Director Russ Uhing said the goal of the administrative session was to help school leaders better understand the issues facing students so they can be welcoming to all students and make them feel comfortable. The handouts, provided by a staff member on a district equity team, were meant only for teachers, not for students or parents. Which leads me to believe that there is a bigot mole on the inside because how else did Mrs. Terry get herands on the handouts to use them against LPS?
These were not meant as rules staff had to follow, but guidelines for how teachers could make students feel more comfortable. It also stresses the impact words can have on others which is particularly important for gay, lesbian and transgender students who are at a higher risk of being bullied, having mental health issues and committing suicide.
I think that LPS is doing a great job trying to change the focus of the conversation. They are trying to be the change they want to see in the world. I commend them. I don’t agree with the stop usage of the terms” boys” and “girls” but I think their hearts are in the right place. As for Rachel Terry, why not try being part of the solution instead of part of the problem. Ponder this, like I teach my children, on the inside we are all the same; humans. Why should a label, a color, whatever our outside looks like define us? Shouldn’t we be commending these children for having the bravery to tell the world who they are? They are living out loud and happy with who they are. Isn’t that enough?
In her email and draft speech, Terry said using taxpayer dollars to promote “the deconstruction of fundamental family and religious values” is a serious breach of trust. Wow! I never understand how a true Christian can speak of religious values out one side of their face and spew hatred and bigotry out of the other side. What happened to tolerance and love? Does Westboro Baptist have a school? Maybe Rachel Terry would feel more comfortable enrolling her children there.
What do you think of Rachel Terry’s opinion that transgender students don’t need equality and that gender-inclusiveness is a waste of taxpayer money?
2014/10/14
I Keep My Kids Home on September 11th, but Not for the Reasons You Think
Last night, I watched as social media became heated and divided over September 11th. These are just a few of the slurs I saw hurled at people.
“Do you live in fear? Do you send your children to school? Do you keep them home? You are stupid if you keep them home. If you keep them home, THEY win. If you send them and they die, at least they lived without fear. We can’t let THEM terrorize us. “

But I think that ship sailed on September 11^th. We have been irrevocably damaged. Maybe we are not broken, but we are not the same. I stayed quiet because I reflect every year on these very thoughts but I do keep my girls home, but not for the reason you might think. This is my secret. I don’t usually talk about it and when I call the school, I make up some excuse of coughing and slight fevers but this year, I just told them that my girls weren’t coming in because September 11th is a day in our household of remembrance and mourning. It’s the truth. Why should I be embarrassed about it?
Today is September 11th and I find myself at the same spot I have every year since that day 13 years ago. I don’t live my life in fear but I don’t send my girls to school on September 11^th either. I never have and I probably never will. No, I’m not a conspiracy theorist and I am not crazy. Keeping them home was not born out of some irrational fear that something terrible was going to happen on September 11^th. It has come from a place of reverence.
What I am is a woman who was 28 years old on September 11^th, 2001. I was just starting my life as a wife, living in Greensboro, North Carolina. My husband was in Pennsylvania traveling for work and I was walking into my office at the small publishing house where I edited. I walked into work just before 9 a.m. in time to see the first plane hit the tower. I was shocked; all the air was sucked out of me. We sat in silence and then my first reaction was to call my husband. I desperately needed to hear his voice. I couldn’t reach him. The phones were down. I never felt so alone in my entire life. The not knowing if he was safe, a sentiment that blanked the entire country, held me in its grip and my heart was heavy, so heavy I felt as if I was choking on the very air I was trying to breathe. A nation full of people sharing a single event and I felt completely alone in my grief, my pain and my fear. I know that I wasn’t but pain is personal. Like everyone else in the United States, I was changed that day forever. I am not the same person I was before that day. I know there have been mass losses before in history and have been more since, but none that have affected me so personally, none that I have been a first person witness.
Every year, I keep my children home from school as my way of stopping the world and remembering. It’s my moment of silence. It lasts 24 hours. Believe me, I never forget. I carry it with me every single day, as I do all the big moments of my life; the hard losses. But on September 11th, I stop in reverence and give myself over in silence and stillness. It is my very small way of paying homage to those men and women who died on that day. It is my way of showing respect to those people who loved them and were left behind to feel the pain for a lifetime. It is a small gesture and in the grand scheme of life insignificant but it is something I need to do. Last year, I explained what today was about to my girls. They know. They pray today for those children who lost their mothers and fathers on that day. They give thanks for those who survived. This is why my girls are home with me today.
I don’t know where the world is headed but I know there is a lot of terrible things going on right now. I can’t turn on the television without seeing someone being shot dead, hacked with a machete or innocents being beheaded. It’s overwhelming the amount of bad things happening right now and worse, what the Internet has made possible to see. Today, we remember all those who were lost to violence and terrorism, pray for those who have to survive the loss, pray for those who are still being victimized by those with hatred in their hearts and do our part to be channels of peace in this world we live in.
Be good to one another every day. Be kind and be reverent today. Pause and be thankful.
2014/09/11
ISIS Barbarically Murders Steven Sotloff & the Entire Internet Watches
ISIS beheaded Steven Sotloff and the world watched, no one intervened. We let it happen.There was no rescue.I am fairly sick over the fact that our world has become so desensitized to the vulgarity and cruelty of the world that not only was it allowed to happen, we were allowed to watch the video. It wasn’t just photo stills, it was his brutal murder. All we could do is sit stunned and watch. It made me sick in my stomach, just the way I felt the day I watched the planes crash into the World Trade Center.
The news is over saturated with entertainment. While sad, these things seem inconsequential in comparison to what happened to Steven Sotloff and the brutality with which it was carried out. Leaked photos are not a national crisis in comparison to beheadings. We live in a world today where reality television is a mainstay and we’re all flies on the wall of society. But still, we do nothing. Nothing has changed except that now we KNOW, we see the awful things happening in real time. It’s disgusting. We are going to raise a generation of desensitized children. Soon, beheadings will no longer shock us at all. One day, my children’s children will not be rattled to their core as I am today.
What are we doing? I just watched the video that ISIS released of the American Journalist, Steven Joel Sotloff, a human being, have his head cut off very crudely with a hunting knife in the dessert, by a masked ISIS executioner as restitution for what our government has done. The brutality and coldness with which the executioner beheaded another human being, snuffed his life out, was nothing short of evil. I am in shock.
“just as your missiles continue to strike our people, our knife will continue to strike the necks of your people”
I don’t know how these things happen. How people, the general public, become pawns of government politics and terrorists. This man was not a soldier. He did not go to a foreign land to fight. He posed no threat. He was just someone’s son, doing a job, and because he happened to be American in a country that hates Americans, he was murdered like an animal. He was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The executioner crudely and callously sawed his head off with a hand held knife. It wasn’t a smooth motion to slit a throat, it was a hack job. This took calculated effort and a desire to finish the job. It took hatred. There was no compassion or humanity. There wasn’t even the courtesy of an ax. There was only brutality.
The whole thing was filmed and at the end, there in the dirt lay some mother’s son murdered, dead in the sand with his head placed on top of his corpse in some disrespectful, cartoonish way like a trophied kill by a hunter only this wasn’t an animal, it was a human being. This man was someone’s everything. He didn’t deserve to be beheaded. He didn’t die in the name of his God or his convictions and beliefs, he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time and no one rescued him.
Right before Sotloff died, he spoke calmly to the camera speaking words that I am sure he was forced to say under extreme duress, but he was eerily calm and resigned to his fate. In the end, he didn’t even resist. I think he had given up or was sedated or perhaps, just refused to give his executioner that last satisfaction of his fear. He’d given up waiting for his hero to rescue him. Given up on living. Given up on trying and wishing and praying.
I hate the Internet for giving these terrorists a venue. I won’t share the video as I don’t want to be part of the problem and really, I am doing you a favor by not sharing it. Don’t look for it. I will never forget what I saw in that video. It shook me to my core. I can’t unsee what I just saw and I can’t stop crying for this poor man and his mother who so desperately begged for his release and his life. It was warned that Steven Joel Sotloff would be beheaded after journalist James Foley was beheaded two weeks ago. Still, Sotloff was not rescued. Our government did not heed the warnings. No one did anything, other than his mother who publicly begged for her son’s life. Now, she gets to see her son, who looks tired and gaunt, in his last minutes before he is murdered speaking his last words and then she has to watch helplessly as he is savagely butchered by a terrorist. And finally, the baby boy that she once held in her arms and soothed to sleep, is laid out on the floor like garbage as a warning to Americans.
I understand that we do not negotiate with terrorists but the longer we take to “develop military strategies” safely from within the U.S. borders, more innocent Americans ( real life human beings not ideas or policies) are being brutally murdered, in real time, by ISIS. Did we learn nothing from 9/11/01? What are our leaders waiting for, ISIS to come to our country and go door-to-door beheading innocents to prove their point? How many mother’s sons have to die before we do something?
Today, I am saddened , sickened and shocked with the world and more specifically by ISIS and the Internet. I pray for the family of Steven Joel Sotloff, especially his mother, whose heart I know is irreparably broken, that she can know peace in the knowledge that those assholes can no longer terrorize him or hurt him.
2014/09/02
The ALS #IceBucketChallenge Controversy
Seems like everyone’s doing the ALS #IceBucketChallenge.
Well, not quite everyone. Not the Catholic Church, not anymore. Not since someone discovered that people acting like goofballs to raise awareness for a very important cause is something “bad”.
Full Disclosure: If you’ve been a reader here for any amount of time, you’ve probably already surmised that I’m a very liberal Catholic. Yes, we do exist!
Okay, let me be totally honest, I’ve got to tread lightly here but I want to write this post. Recently, “a friend” (let’s say his name rhymes with “the principal”) was nominated for the #icebucketchallenge by 3 kindergarteners. If you knew this guy, you’d know that he’s is a genuinely good guy. He mentioned that he’d been trying to decide whether or not he would take part in the ALS ice bucket challenge. In fact, he was rallying to get a couple priests to do the challenge with him to help garner more attention for the cause until he received a “concerned citizen” note that informed him that he shouldn’t do it because the ALSA uses embryonic stem research. (Cue pitchforks and angry parent mob).
She was not so subtly warning him that participating in the ALS #Icebucketchallenge would put him in direct contradiction to the church’s position on abortion. (Cue disapproving look and shunning). Obviously, this was her “Christian duty”, seeing as his everlasting soul was in peril. Sorry kids. No dunking the principal in ice water to help the sinners at ALSA. (I hope you are reading this in sarcasm font and know that I am being facetious.)
I know many people who have done it. A few of my brothers and sisters (yes, I told you we’re Catholic. Keep up) have even done it. We are big into raising awareness of important causes. I understand my religion’s stance on embryonic stem cell research but before we through the baby out with the ice water people should know that you can tell the ALSA where to spend your contribution. You can specify that you don’t want to contribute to embryonic stem research or you can donate to the ALS Foundation, which helps people living with the disease by providing supplies or the John Paul II Medical Research foundation, which concentrates on medical research using adult stem cells and other alternatives to embryonic stem cells.
He closed the letter by saying that he WILL be accepting the challenge from the 3 kindergarteners and donating to a Diocesan approved ALS charity because the idea of finding a cure for ALS is noble.
No matter what you think about the ALS #icebucketchallenge ( which to be honest I thought was kind of ridiculous until I saw the above video) but now am forced to defend it because I always thought being a “good person” was about tolerance and doing unto others as you would have them do unto you. Seems like some people think their morals put them on a higher horse than the rest of us. Can’t we all just help those in need?
What do you think about the #Icebucketchallenge ?
2014/08/26