Covert Mom: Somebody’s Baby

By Mariah Mottley

 

The rules as I know them are simple: You show up for the kids in your life. Birthday parties, performances, hospital visits, holidays, and when they make speeches at the March for Our Lives rally. Saturday, March 24, my eldest daughter and I arrived at the Bernie Milton pavilion out of breath, and just in time to hear Caitlin Howell and Lena Kennell, high schoolers from Newfield, speak. I found Melody, Lena’s mother, in the crowd. She turned to me, her eyes flat with discomfort.

“I’ve been here since two,” she said. “My feet are freezing.”

I handed her my Thermos.

“Can I pour it straight on my shoes?” she asked.

There were familiar faces in the crowd. The Irish Italian pastor for peace with the dog in the rainbow harness wearing his homemade buttons was there, lots of moms I knew, including my midwife, Monica Daniel. Another scan of the crowd confirmed that the wingnut with the sign announcing that Sandra Steingraber is a liar was absent from this particular event. So many Doc Martens. Green docs, black docs, purple docs, sparkly docs, though not on Melody’s feet. She handed me back my Thermos and nodded upward. I looked. Two cops stood on the roof of the building across the street, just behind the Hilton. Watching us, and the other, lower, rooftops behind us. Watching for shooters. God. My adrenaline kicked in, the horrifying elegies in the dentist’s office People magazine for the Parkland victims that I told myself not to read but did anyway flashing across my mind. They were just babies, those kids.

Lena was wearing a gray quilted jacket that fit her well. She is a sophomore at Newfield. She looked together, neat and tidy. I have known her since she was three months old. She was the first baby to use baby sign language with me, the first baby to give me a nickname, and the first I would wear in a carrier while her mother shopped. Her younger brothers and my children were all born the same years. She is a star in my constellation.

She began by defining Newfield as the reality surrounding Ithaca’s liberal 10-square miles. Her school principal, she said, had threatened her with suspension should she mention the NRA by name when she spoke during Newfield’s National Walkout event on March 14. The very same National Rifle Association, she stated, that was lining the pockets of our politicians and silencing them. She wasn’t supposed to call them out on this fact.

“Mr. Ryan,” she yelled, “I’m calling YOU out.”

Lena urged everyone to get politically involved, register to vote — midterm elections were approaching. She also noted the role that race played could not be ignored, pointed out the disproportionate rate at which gun violence affected black communities and the different treatment that students who participated in the Black Lives Matter walkouts received compared to those in March for Our Lives; that white privilege was not to be ignored, but to be used to amplify voices that were being muted. “I love my country,” she said, “but I am ashamed.”

Her voice got quiet when she noted that one of her younger brothers uses a walker and could not get to a safe place during her last school lockdown; he had curled up trembling, knowing that if a gunman came to his classroom he’d be the first one to get shot. “An elementary schooler should not have to handle these situations.” Now her voice was cold, a pissed teenager announcing the obvious. She defined mass shooters — almost always white men — as domestic terrorists, and blamed the media for not portraying them that way, noting that she and other students like herself are not seeking just media coverage, but actual policy change. Finally, she warned Washington of the power of united youth. “Parkland cannot happen again. We can do better. Honor the victims with change. Honor the victims by protecting their siblings, parents, teachers, classmates, coaches, and peers… Congress,” she yelled, “It’s time to STEP UP!”

“Who raised that girl?” whispered Monica Daniel to Melody, as everyone clapped.

Melody smiled. “She crushed that.”

“She crushed it,” Monica and I agreed.

I caught up with Lena and gave her a big hug, at a loss for words. I have a problem with authority: I am automatically suspicious of people trying to inspire me. We Gen Xers, us 90s kids, we don’t trust easily. I am generally hard pressed to accept heroes or teachers, and as a result, faced young adulthood with nothing to believe in, no stars under which to voyage. Lena, whom I met when I was 22, and then my own daughter at 25, changed that. The intensity of loving them and their subsequent siblings stuck a pin through my heart and onto the map of my life, orienting me. We carry our heroes and teachers inside us, it turns out. I wanted to thank her for showing me that, to try to explain the loyalty she has inspired, but couldn’t.

Each child that has died needlessly as of result of unregulated gun laws is as special to someone as Lena is to me. Do as she says and call your representatives, show up for the midterm elections, and everything else in your power to give the Parkland shooting victims a place in history as the very last American students to endure such violence.