There are those moments in life that remain with us, wanted or not. Hospitals, often overheated and reeking of cleanser, can quickly resurrect difficult memories. For me it is a date on a calendar that can yank dark thoughts from those hidden places we hope to keep safe and quiet.
Almost everyone from my mother’s generation knew exactly where he or she was when J.F.K. was assassinated on November 22, 1963. We were living in Revere along the boardwalk when our neighbor Nancy came tearing over, distraught and crying. I was only two, but my mother tells me she heard the news over the radio that lived on our kitchen table. She also says that she can still remember watching Jack Ruby fatally shoot Lee Harvey Oswald on national TV.
I can remember exactly where I was and to whom I was speaking when John Lennon was shot outside the Dakota in New York City, on December 8th, 1980. I remember shaking, crying, sad beyond belief that someone would kill a person who seemed, to me, a gentle and kind soul. I think about it every year on the anniversary.
The big one, the whopper of all dark and streaky memories is September 11th, 2001. My mother called and frantically yelled, “They are attacking us.” And then she added words I will never forget: “Your brother was on a plane out of Logan this morning.” He was flying on American Airlines headed to Atlanta, but at that moment we did not know the original routes of the planes that hit the towers.
I stood in front of the TV for an hour. I was still in my pajamas, a red and white striped flannel nightshirt, the phone clutched in my hand. I could not move. I called my editor at the Boston Globe to let him know that, for the first time ever, I would be blowing off a deadline. I could not write. I could not even think. About 90 minutes later my mother called again. My brother had been landed in Atlanta, where he was stuck for several days, eventually driving home.
Everywhere one went that week people were subdued, shocked, and kind to one another. Like many others, I had the radio or television on, incessantly taking in news that was often repetitive but still shocking each time the same devastating footage was shown.
Now there are so many mass killings that they have become one large jumble of destruction. The worst, for me, was the mowing down of babies at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, which rattled my inner thoughts and intruded on my sleep for weeks. That was replaced by the mass shooting at a concert at the Mandalay Bay Casino in Nevada last year, which was replaced by images of students at the Marjory Stoneham Douglas School in Florida on Valentine’s Day this year. And now we have the Tree of Life Synagogue. October 27th, 2018. Eleven killed, six injured. Horror committed by an adherent of Trump who believed he needed to ethnically cleanse the people helping “invaders” come into our country. I doubt I will ever forget the date.
I am upset every time I read about a person killed because someone else disliked the color of his or her skin or the god to whom they pray. I also suppose the synagogue massacre will stay with me because half of my family is Jewish. My mother changed our names back to her maiden name, so while I appear to be Irish, I am actually more Ashkenazi Jew than I am Irish or French. Americans, unlike most citizens of the world, often believe that only religious Jews are real Jews, but it is also an ethnicity. In fact, one had to be only one-eighth Jewish to be marched off to the camps during WWII.
According to an article in USA today, anti-Semitism is on the rise. There has been a 57 percent increase in incidents from the previous year. Of course, Islamophobic incidents are also on the rise, as well as hate crimes against African Americans. That said, I do not worry for my safety. My Ethiopian daughter is more likely to be a target of miscreants than I am since I look no more Jewish than she does and am hardly ever in a synagogue. But I do worry about friends and relatives — less so for those living in the north, more so for my many relatives in Virginia and Florida.
I wake up some morning feelings as if we are living in the final chapters of a dystopian science fiction novel. Species are dying, the oceans are expanding, pollution is overtaking us, and followers of the President are targeting groups of people. I am holding my breath until November 6th, hoping that sanity will reign and the Democrats will at least take back the House. I am hoping Democrats will stand strong in the face of the racist, hateful rhetoric coming from Trump and his minions. Perhaps a Democratic House will start the process of banning AR-15s.
I hold on to that hope because at my core I believe we are not really a nation of baby-killing, Jew-hating, Islamophobic racists. Now everyone just needs to stand up and prove it.
