In times like these it is easy to lose ourselves in dreams rather than deal with the reality.
My generation has been here before, but in a different way.
Our 9/11 Moment
On September 11, 2001, my Algebra II teacher pushed in a television on the cart. We watched smoke come from a skyscraper. Then we saw the second plane hit the other tower. Small dots that were people jumped from the tower. My class went from being happy about not having to do math to coming to the reality the United States was under attack from a foreign invader for the first time since Pearl Harbor.
I was born soft because I was sheltered and protected as if I had a false nineteen fifties’ childhood. But I was witness to many events throughout my thirty-five years in life that have caused me to become more skeptical at times, hard when I have to be, and realize the needs of others far outweigh the fact Amazon lost my insulated dog house.
Do you think when Jews were taken from their homes in Germany, Poland, France and other nations they did not want to go back to the comfort of their homes? Anne Frank had a crush. She wanted to go back to life as it was.
I want to return to a life with my daughter.
But we don’t always get what we want.
Now is the time to log off of Amazon, and think what can I do to make this society a better place rather than what can society, or DoorDash, do for me?
This is your 9/11.
This is your “President John F. Kennedy was shot” moment.
This is your Franklin D. Roosevelt speaks on the radio time.
This is your time, as the actors rap and sing in Hamilton, “to rise up.”
When You’ve Seen Bodies
You don’t have to agree with it, but Americans in their teens and twenties are already stepping up to the plate. I could not comment on George Floyd because his death happened at the same time as Corrie’s. I felt the pain in Ahmaud Arbery’s mom’s voice when she spoke in shock to the press just before Corrie died. She was asked if she had watched the video of his death.
I can say first hand no one wants to watch their child die, and I know she wants her son’s life to matter. She wants to know every year of his life counted on this Earth.
How do I know?
I need to believe every second of my daughter’s life was important on this Earth. Corrie knew about Ahmaud Arbery. We talked about the pain his mom felt about losing a son; how it was something beyond all imagination.
But, I cried for half an hour over the murder of Secoriea Turner. Her life mattered. She was only a little girl, and her mother watched her get shot. Her mother wanted to get her out as soon as she could and save her daughter’s life.
When I write this is your moment, I mean it is your moment to do something for others. We have sat too long on a “Look at me society.”
It is selfish.
It is wasteful.
To worry over and over about the fact Amazon lost my puppies’ insulated house is not going to serve others.
I was a young reporter when I found out I was pregnant. I worked for a paper that published five days a week, and I covered an entire county in North Carolina. We had a police radio, so we knew what was happening.
In October 2009 at twenty-three-years-old, a big part of the optimism I was known for died.
A man, drunk, drove his vehicle into the house belonging to a man running for city council. When I arrived on scene, blood and some brain matter covered the full windshield. The driver died instantly. His body was covered in a white sheet by the time I arrived on scene. Police and paramedics were investigating the scene.
Just as I would face negative attitudes as a teacher from others who felt they knew better than me about my career, I dealt with more open negativity as a reporter. I followed the journalism codes closely. This was also during a time when the phrase “the liberal news media is destroying America” floated easily in 2008 and 2009.
That was not political.
That was the reality.
A paramedic who openly disdained me at many of the accident scenes I covered put her hands over my camera lens. I was standing behind the yellow line. I took pictures of the scene; not the body.
A few days later, I drove out on a day full of gray clouds. Rain poured just like on Wednesday, May 27, 2020. It was at the end of October near Halloween. The lights at a busy intersection were not working. An eighteen wheeler had the right of way when a grandmother with three preteen and teen grandsons collided her vehicle with the truck. She died, two grandsons sustained minor injuries, and …
I watched paramedics push a small body covered with a white sheet away.
That night, I found out I was pregnant.
We Should Still Dream
Had Corrie been blessed with more time, I know she would’ve been an activist, a writer, teacher, chef, singer or preacher. She had an ability to see people’s weakness; their reality, and call their hand before they ever laid their deck on the table. Corrie also had the ability to bring out other children and adults’ promise and strengths.
I’m not a mom saying, “My kid was so smart.”
Corrie was wise and intelligent beyond her years. Now I truly believe that was for a reason.
Corrie often had grown up conversations with me. She and I talked about Malcolm X when I listened to Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention from audible as I walked in our field. Corrie would walk alongside me.
Despite what I’ve experienced in my thirty-five years, we can have our 9/11 moments where we choose to stand up and help others through hard situations while we still dream. Corrie would do it.
By the time my son was diagnosed with autism, I had experienced more than a hand over my camera lens, I tried to lock up and keep away from other adults. I was tired of what I had endured. I did not trust one adult, except my husband.
Corrie would go talk to other kids and their parents. Because of the sheer force of her personality, she forced me to speak with others even when I did not want to.
Corrie’s inspiration isn’t done. As the old saying goes: “The spirit moves me,” I believe her spirit sends messages or sends a presence. It’s okay to call me a “fool.” Trust me, I’m cynical enough sometimes to take it.
I know for two reasons:
- Corrie had a faith that never doubted Jesus was her savior and God was the Father.
Me, I questioned.
2. Corrie had a presence where the most cynical person in the room put down his or her cup of black coffee and listened.
Her personality was bigger than her body. Now, in our Martin Luther King, Jr time, we should still hold to our dreams and beliefs no matter what others say. As we do for others, we should still dream.
Two weeks ago, Corrie showed me the field behind our house full of orange and yellow sunflowers. I believed she communicated that she was at peace and wanted me to spread beauty in the world.
Everything did not click until I looked at where my dreams, service and therapy connected.
Of the graves I’ve cared for on my Memorial Kinder Walk in Corrie’s cemetery, most I’ve found have been boys. When I looked back on what I’d accomplished thus far, I realized the majority of the fake flowers at the site of the boys’ graves I’ve arranged are yellow and orange.
For me, everything from the dream made sense. Corrie was showing me how I would spread beauty in a small way to the memories of other babies, children and I have one teen right now.
The fact was I could not find fake blue flowers anywhere. I found pink, purple and white. But I only found blue for Baby Benjamin’s grave.
Corrie showed me the sunflowers for a reason. She showed me no matter what I’ve experienced: “When you’re living on your knees, you rise up” (Hamilton, “My Shot”). Dreams of skeptics and optimists alike can come to the forefront of the storm we face if only put ourselves out there for what is right.
By Rebecca T. Dickinson
Corrie's Season 