Pride and Hope

 

         I exhaled my cigar smoke into the cool air as I walked across the large grassy park. It’d rained earlier in the week and the moist sod muffled my boot covered footsteps. I looked down at my ever-escaping shadow and saw an odd outline.

         Normally my shadow is reflective of my pants and my leather jacket followed by long, thin wisps of my hair. However; today, in the early afternoon sun, my shadow showed my head looked like some strange box. That’s when I remembered the hat that was lovingly given me by an elderly British lady. And when I put it on she laughed and said I looked great.

         I reached up and pulled the hand-knitted pink wool hat off my head and just stared at it.

         If I’d learned anything from the events of today, it was there is hope. There is love and I was glad to be on the receiving end of those emotions.

         I also learned there is anger. There is frustration. There is grief and there is going to be hell to pay. I’m also glad I’m not on the receiving end of those emotions.

         If you’d asked me a year ago, hell even a month ago about the upcoming generation I’d have laughed and said they were a bunch of self-absorbed, entitled, tide-pod eating idiots.

         Not today.

         They changed my mind.

         And it all started with my daughter.

         She was asked to be on the National Student Council for the “March for our Lives” movement. She eagerly agreed.

         That in of itself made me proud of her.

         Then she organized a school walk-out. She also got the schools administration to wave any punishment for any student who participated in the walk-out.

         Then she made a gun-violence six-minute movie.

         Then she wrote a speech.

         Today she gave that speech in front of three-thousand people. Her anger, her frustration and her distaste for our current administration seeped from every pour of her body.

         Then other students, like my daughter got up and gave empowering speeches. They sang. They danced. They demanded change.

         Then they marched.

         And I walked away with pride for my daughter and her generation. I walked away with hope for their future.

         I walked away grateful that I was not a politician who had to face the angry, unheard, tired and frustrated youth of this new generation.

         If I’ve learned anything from my daughter it is that she is not going to accept being treated like a second-class citizen because of her sex. She’s not going to accept unnecessary violence. She’s not going to accept “No” for an answer. She’s not going to accept any disrespect from elected officials. She’s not going to accept any of that, and neither are her peers.

         My generation dropped the ball on standing up for what is right and what is wrong. Our progeny are suffering from our mistakes. But they forgive us and only ask for our support.

         It’s the least I can do. It’s the least any of us can do.

         Now, let’s change this country for the better.

         Have a great week.