Sand Point, MI
July 18, 2022
Senators Dan Lauwers and Mike Shirkey
Dear Senators:
Alithia Ramirez, 10, loved drawing. After her friend Nico was killed by a car a year ago, Alithia drew pictures to comfort Nico’s parents. In one image, she illustrated Nico drawing in heaven while she, Alithia, drew on Earth. What an incredibly compassionate soul for such a young girl! Our society needs more people like Alithia, but she, like Nico, was taken from us too soon. Alithia is one of Uvalde’s victims of gun violence.
It is not easy to continue to write these letters. It’s not your lack of responses that makes it hard – I can write until the cows come home, whether or not I have a reader. It’s the subject matter, requiring me to dwell every day on the needless deaths of children, that’s hard. The PREVENTABLE senseless deaths of children. And the absurd responses of too many of the politicians who hold power.
This weekend saw another mass shooting, in a mall in Indiana. This time, someone with a gun killed the shooter, probably preventing more carnage. I’m not sure that matters to the families and friends of the three people he’d already killed before being stopped. The Congresswoman for my district celebrated the event on Twitter – a “win” for the good guys. She has yet to comment on the absence of courage conveyed by nearly 400 “good guys with guns” in Uvalde who stood by while children were being slaughtered. The video from the school confirmed my worst fears: even well-trained law enforcers fear a killer with an assault rifle.
There were no heroes in Uvalde that day, unless you consider the mom who broke through the police barricade to retrieve her two children from their classroom. Or perhaps the 10-year-olds calling for help as classmates were shot. Maybe the child who had the presence of mind to smear herself with her friend’s blood and pretend to be dead? That strikes me as pretty courageous.
Where would you stand, Senators? Would you draw arms to target the killer? Would you charge into the building, grabbing every child you could reach, to bring them to safety? Or would you mill about a classroom hallway, listening to dying children screaming, waiting for someone else to give the order to attack?
From your continued silence I could hazard a guess, but I will not. I will try to summon more confidence in humanity’s shared empathy to hope these stories are getting through.
Alithia can no longer draw pictures to comfort others, so I will keep writing letters, attempting to paint her pictures with my words.
For Alithia
.
“Paint her pictures with my words.” This phrase, this image jars my sensibility. Let our writing be the brushstrokes that keep the memory of these children alive.