Just Let Us Be!

Rape. Shooting. Abuse. Everywhere I look, whichever news page I land on, these three words scream out. Loud. 

6-year-olds being molested, shootings at schools, children accidentally shooting themselves or people around them because they had a  gun at disposal. This is  the world we live in. This is the world our kids are growing up in. 

Yesterday's event - the shooting at an army school killing 150 people, most of them children, was just heart breaking. When I see the plight of all the parents who lost their kids in the shooting, my heart aches. No parent can ever face a harsher punishment. No parent ever should.

We are all taught to compromise, share and take turns as kids. But somehow, when we grow up, that message is lost in some of us. We want to win at all costs. We want to make ourselves happy, and if that means hurting somebody else, we just don't care. Children learn by example, not by the words we speak. If everything around them is violent, scary, threatening and conniving, how can we bring up self-assured, patient and kind kids? 

I admit, it's just a few of us adults that have jingoistic tendencies toward our beliefs. It's only a few of us who'd go to unspeakable limits to uphold our beliefs. It's just a few of us who can destroy humanity, and a delicate world. 

I don't intend to preach, I don't intend to condemn. Each of us may have a reason for what we're doing, but that's just it - it's our reason - the only person affected by it should be our own self. There's no reason for us to hurt the rest. We have no right on another person's life, not even on our own children s', especially not our children - they have a future as bright as they want it to be, as bright as we can let them be. 

So then, this is a plea - to the person who picks up his gun, to the person who makes another person uncomfortable - physically, mentally, emotionally; to the person who won't stop till his devastating vision of the world is accomplished - to the human inside the person. You may have forgotten what it means to be a child, what it means to embrace your mother, play with your father, and I am sorry for that. To me, all those moments are precious. Memories that keeps me alive and hopeful for a world that's rife with immense possibilities. 

I want my children to learn, to love and embrace a new idea, a new feeling, a new phase of a thriving life. I don't want them to fear it. No daughter should not have to ask me the meaning of rape, murder, assault, mean at any age. No son should ever feel compelled to belittle somebody else just to feel superior about himself. 

You've chosen what you want from life. But you can't choose for us or for our children. Let us be. Let us laugh a little, love a little, cry a little. Please, don't break us. Don't break our spirit, our will. We may not all unite in our fight against you - yet, but we all do unite in our hatred for you. 

I wish, you would see what you've done with eyes that feel the pain. I wish you would listen to the screams with a heart that can love, I wish you would answer to the parents who lost their world, to the children who lost their childhood, to all the men and women who lost their hope. 

We each have our own little stories, our own triumphs, our own sorrow. Just let us be. You didn't get us into this world, you can't take us away from it. 

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