It has felt feels strange to go about my day normally today. As I snuggled up with the kids last night and kissed them this morning while they lay asleep it was a bittersweet emotion. Vivaan had a play at school and that meant all four of us drove together and it was surreal to watch all these innocent kids enjoying their childhood knowing there were 19 others who couldn’t do that anymore. There was gratitude for all that I could experience and deep anger and sadness that several other families were untimely taken away from this joy of what it means to be a family in Texas yesterday. 

And this is while we as a nation are processing the loss of our fellow black humans killed in Buffalo. When you go grocery shopping you are often thinking about food and eating a meal with people you love and care about not that this may be the place you take your last breath and yet here we are. 

I know life isn’t always fair and sometimes life ends earlier than we want to but this grief for those impacted feels too much and not the kind of unfairness we should have to be dealing with. I am learning to surrender and trust with so many other threads in my life but today with all that going on I am not ready to calm down or silence my anger. I want to sit with this pain, the unfairness of it all, the lack of humanity in our choices, and the loss for these families.

Young children should not be made to part with lives and black humans should not have a shorter life because of the color of their skin. 

PERIOD. 

I don’t have all the answers. This problem feels too grave and our collective grief too heavy so I am doing what I can at this moment to be with it, to give it some room to breathe, and to write about it. I know these words can’t bring back those lives and they also don’t change policies, laws, and accountability in this country. And yet, this is a medium for me to make sense of the world around me…

Today is George Floyd’s second death anniversary yet we are unable to pause and honor him because we are yet again processing new grief and trauma as a society

I am seeing links to places we can donate to, senators we can call, and certain schools and parents taking action in their own unique and meaningful ways. I am still grieving the losses that these families are grappling with. I am saddened that this is a country I am living in where this continues to happen. 

I have exchanged texts, had conversations, and read to make sense of this grief, it is too big to make sense of and I am trying to give myself space to process, to be sad, to be angry. Not doing anything feels like I am enabling this to continue yet a part of me isn’t able to do much. 

If you are a manager of a team – check in with your people, especially the black people and parents on your team. They are grieving and navigating hurt and anger. They are not feeling okay – some may need more work to distract themselves and some may need some space to talk about what we are seeing in this country and some may need more alone time. Ask them how you can best support them. It may not change the outcome but for a moment they will feel seen, heard, and supported. There is a lot of collective grief and trauma we are experiencing in the world right now…

I am holding the families in my thoughts and many, many others who have lost loved ones over the decades to gun violence and racism in this country.

Pic Credit: Mike Labrum