The heaviness of their hearts

a post from Belle

On Tuesday afternoon, Bea and Harriet and I went for a walk after school—our normal path, through the woods and along the gravel drive to the river. Both girls were so chatty about their days, and they kept interrupting each other—Harriet wanted to pretend she was a lost fairy, and Bea wanted to tell me about a group project she was working on with some of her classmates. They’ve been studying ancient Egypt, a passion of Bea’s, and she told me about the report she was writing, the poster she was making, the papier-måché mask project they were starting.

“That’s a lot of plans for the last two weeks of school,” I remarked.

“I wish school could just… keep going,” she said wistfully, then ran off to join her sister, who was by now pretending to be something else.

I heard the news about Uvalde while making dinner, quickly turning off NPR so the girls wouldn’t hear. “The school year’s done,” Uvalde School Superintendent Hal Harrell told reporters at a press conference that afternoon. He sounded completely shaken. All the sweet little last rituals of school replaced by a hellscape of trauma.

We have managed to keep the news from Bea. And Harriet, which is less surprising. Bea goes to school, talks with kids all day, rides the bus home in the afternoon, but so far she hasn’t heard. I imagine that other parents, like us, have turned off the news and avoided exposing their second graders to one of the defining fears of childhood, parenthood, and education in America. I can imagine her teachers full of sadness, but keeping their spirits up for the sake of those kids.

In my college creative writing classes, I’ve been struck by how school shootings no longer feature as the central plot element of short stories. They’re often just in the background now—something a character endured in her past, like cancer or another kind of loss. I don’t know that any of my students have experienced school shootings, but they’ve certainly been part of their lives. An eighteen year old would have been eight—Bea’s age—when Sandy Hook happened, fourteen when Parkland and Santa Fe happened. The U.S. has experienced 2,654 mass shootings since 2012, without any meaningful movement on gun control. This doesn’t include the peripheral but real terror of kids placed on classroom lockdown, as they were on Wednesday in Wayne County, NC after someone circulated threats on Facebook.

I am so worried about the election in November, and what it will mean if we have a Republican Senate, a Republican House of Representatives, another supermajority in the North Carolina legislature.

Because Republican politicians are gun nuts, crazy enough to think that the solution to gun violence is more guns. Despite the fact that armed guards in Buffalo and Uvalde did not stop the killers. Despite the fact that we know that more guns equals more deaths. They want to arm teachers, even though that’s obviously a terrible, dangerous idea that would drive away more good teachers (and probably attract some sociopaths). The Republican idea of a good leader is a racist, misogynist narcissist who could not be trusted to comfort victims of violent tragedies or natural disasters.

Guns don’t belong in schools, because guns are about ending life. School is about discovering and preserving life—its rituals and belief systems, like the world mythology Bea loves to study. Its wonders—like the transformation of the caterpillar to butterfly both Bea and Harriet’s classes are watching now.

Good leaders understand this. Years ago the principal at the school where I worked in Saxapahaw learned that an off-duty Chatham County sheriff’s deputy had worn a gun to an IEP meeting in our building. He was there as support for one of our parents, and I don’t know if he was intentionally wearing the gun as a show of power, or if he was the sort of asshole who just always wears one. But our principal was outraged. She contacted his supervisor and had him come to a staff meeting. He had to sit there and listen to all of our boring points of business until finally she asked him to apologize for the behavior of his deputy. He obliged, and told us the deputy would be disciplined.

I didn’t always agree with my boss, but I felt a lot of respect for her that day. She used her power to say that guns did not belong around our kids and teachers. That this was our space, we knew what we were doing in it, and we had the right to say what was okay and what wasn’t. I wish politicians like Ted Cruz and Thom Tillis and Greg Abbott would take time to listen to teachers about what they need and don’t need, or to the 90 percent of Americans who want better gun control. Instead they’re headed to an NRA convention. In Texas. (Well, I’m not sure that Tillis is going—but our lieutenant governor, Mark Robinson, will speak at an NRA “prayer breakfast” 🤮 and Tillis is a top recipient of NRA blood money).

Bea told me that in her ancient Egypt group, most people wanted to write about the construction of the pyramids, but she chose to write about death and the afterlife, because she thought it was more important. She explained how, after a person died, an embalmer would remove all of the organs during mummification, leaving only the heart. The heart was the recorder of all the good and bad deeds in a person’s life, needed for judgment in the afterlife. The dead person’s spirit would stand before Anubis, who would weigh the heart against the feather of Maat, goddess of truth and justice, as forty-two other gods looked on. A light heart, free of sin, would be equal or less than the weight of Maat’s feather—those lighthearted spirits, who had done many good deeds, went to the Field of Two Reeds, a place of joy and happiness. Heavy hearts, laden with sin, were eaten by Ammit. Their spirits stayed in the underworld forever.

We say “I have a heavy heart” to mean sorrow, but to ancient Egyptians it meant guilt. I can’t think of anywhere more underworldly than an NRA convention days after a mass murder of school children, less than two weeks after a white supremacist mass murder in a supermarket. I can’t think of hearts heavier than the hearts of Ted Cruz, Donald Trump, Greg Abbott, and anyone else participating in that convention.

Or lighter hearts than those of children.

Frog Troublers, we’re going to take Sunday off because we’re headed out of town, but we’ll be back with new posts about butterflies next week. I’d also love to hear from those of you local Frog Troublers who’d like to go to an awesome, free summer social with County to County? County to County is targeting our volunteer action on tight local races of outstanding candidates like Ricky Hurtado. I’m ready to get to know more of my neighbors who want to help save democracy, the environment, our public schools.

It’s the afternoon of June 5, and there will be delicious food and a bluegrass band. Email me at belleboggs@gmail.com if you’d like more info, or sign up here.