Prayers Are Not Enough
Children outside the SSGT Willie de Leon Civic Center, a meeting center for Robb Elementary School students and their families after a shooting, in Uvalde, Texas. May 24, 2022. Marco Bello/Reuters via Alamy
So used to asking questions, a border journalist is left speechless when the roles are reversed and it is her young children who demand an explanation for which there are no words.
Editor’s note: To read this story in Spanish click here.
Mom, will those children who were killed in Texas go to heaven? asked my 7-year-old son on the night of May 24. He and his twin sister, Mika, came home from school in dismay. They heard that an armed teenager had lashed out at other children and gunned them down.
When I picked them up from school that afternoon there was no hello or what's for dinner at home? They were hungry for answers. Why did he kill them? Who gave him the gun? How old was he? What were the children's names? What did the teachers do? Who notified the parents? How did the police know? Who stopped the attacker? Will he go to hell? They didn't even pause to take a breath; they interrupted each other to say out loud in Spanglish all those thoughts that were eating them up. Not only did they want answers; they needed them.
That afternoon, in Uvalde, Texas, a community about 80 miles from San Antonio, an 18-year-old walked into Robb Elementary School with an assault rifle. He killed 19 children and two teachers, just the day that some of the victims had received an award for their academic successes before the end of the school year. They had a ceremony very similar to that one my children had in Arizona that very same day; they came home with diplomas. But there, the assailant, who was a former Robb student, barricaded himself and fired away until he was also shot and killed.
Firearms are the leading cause of death for children in the United States.
In the twin's mind, the armed attack on the Uvalde elementary school made no sense. Neither in mine. The victims looked too much like them and their little friends; distance separated them, but they were united by race. Why them? Because they spoke Spanish? Why did that big boy become a villain?
I didn't know what to answer. I told them that maybe he was sad and angry.
But it's not the other kids' fault, Mika interrupted me. I know. She knows. We know.
I chose my words very carefully. I, who never stop talking, did not know what to say that day. If the massacre had already taken part of their innocence, I didn't want to end whatever grace and pureness were left.
It was their last week of school, and that day they came out smiling, fighting, and playing, as usual; but something was off. They were ready to dig deeper into that news. As I drove home, with the radio off and a whirlwind of questions in Spanglish, my heart was so heavy it turned to tears. Coming home from school shouldn't be a privilege.
People outside the SSGT Willie de Leon Civic Center in Uvalde, Texas. May 24, 2022. Photo by Marco Bello/Reuters via Alamy
Those parents are going to be very sad and that makes me very sad, said Matías. I saw him in the rearview mirror and he was making those pouts that come out like a grimace when the pain doesn't fit into words.
I was stunned.
I don't know how to talk to my children about so much violence. Every day they are more alive and curious. They are not satisfied with monosyllable answers. They are also not indifferent to the pain of others. I don't know if I'm using the right words or the right tone, I don't know how much detail to give them, but I can't ignore them either. They live in a country where you can get killed just for being a foreigner, Black, or Latino. A nation where it seems that weapons are more important than children; a country where the little ones train for an active shooter drill and a fire drill. Firearms are the leading cause of death for children in the United States. Are we screwed?
I'm not the only one who is confused and hurt. I started a conversation on social media, WhatsApp, and in person. I had coffee with my community; I really wanted to see if we were all having the same challenge. I had just two questions: Did you talk about this with your children? What did you tell them?
“My 13-year-old daughter took it out in the middle of a meal with my children of 10, 8, and 6. I told them that, sadly, a young man who had suffered a lot and was not right in the head decided to go to a school and kill innocent children and teachers. What is very important is never to bully or participate or remain silent if we see that someone is bothered or having a bad time; tell a teacher,” said Regina Garza.
“A young person should not have access to weapons.”
“I did talk to him; it was very difficult. He is 10 years old, the same age as many of the victims. We live in California, he attends a big school and I told him the truth, that a young man with mental issues had murdered people in a school in Texas. He had several questions and I tried to answer him truthfully, with what I have learned from the news, but always emphasizing the fact that a young person should not have access to weapons. We are very affected by the tragedy,” said Julieta Torres.
“My daughter just turned 7 years old; this morning she found me crying and I told her that a teenager behaved very badly, that he did not take care of his angry emotions and that instead of telling his parents that he was angry, he took his pistol and a rifle; for this, I had to explain what a rifle is, and he used them in an irresponsible way”, said Argelia Hernández.
“Not really, because you never know what to do in those moments. The survival instinct is difficult to train. It is born at the moment of the threat. I only told them that surely in their school they would be commenting on such a sad event, but that they should be careful with what they listened to and what information they decided to process and keep. It's not that one is indifferent, but I educate from love and not fear," said Ana AR.
“We cannot and should not sit back as if nothing had happened and wait for how bloody the next school massacre will be or if it will be at my children’s school or yours,” Gerardo Cárdenas emphasized.
Screengrabs blurring the identity of some of the people who responded in Spanish to Félix’s questions about how to talk to children.
Many opinions and emotions. Some mothers prefer to avoid the difficult conversation because they don't feel ready to have one, or their children didn't know anything about what happened, or maybe because they don't want to expose them to violence or pain, or simply because they don't know how. As someone who has spent my life asking questions for a living, I perhaps would have preferred not to be asked. As a journalist who has covered multiple massacres and shootings, I feel it deeply since I became a mother.
I'm not alone either. The Mexican psychologist and educator Martha Téllez insists that it is better to speak clearly about everything with the little ones at home, including the violence that plagues the United States with the more than 200 shootings so far this year and with the drug crimes, femicides, and disappearances that happen in Mexico. Téllez, who is from the border, understands the need to be prepared for a response with bicultural and transnational sensitivity.
“It is at home where everything begins; we cannot put our children in a bubble, they receive information from everywhere, (so) it is better to be the ones who guide them because no one is exempt from tragedy,” said Téllez.
Also, learn to identify behaviors that, as parents, we ignore and could be a warning, she said.
"At home, we can and must detect if our children have any behavioral disorder; it is a matter of paying attention to them," Téllez explained.
"We are more concerned about what tablet I am going to buy for my son than taking him to the park ... because we don't want them to suffer or not have what we didn't have."
What I don't want mine to lack is love. I think very often about the last few times; sometimes, I tend to be fatalistic. Every morning, I hug them, kiss them, and shout ¡Te amo! (I love you) that the effect of my cloying is just enough for my children to feel sheltered all day ... or in case something happens to me or to them. Matías is mellow like me; for Mika, my caresses are torture.
We live in a double-standard society where we want to prevent children from learning about ethnic studies or hearing the word “gay” in an academic curriculum, but there is no gun control or criminal background check.
That night I hugged them tighter. I turned off the lights and chatted, in a slow voice that I hardly ever have the patience to use. As a journalist mom, I recorded our conversation. It was 16 minutes of listening to their concerns and theories, of feeling their voices break as they expressed their fears, with their bodies covered and their hearts bare on the bed.
Mom, are they going to kill me at school? Mika asked in a disconsolate tone.
I told her that everything would be fine, that she should go to sleep, and that I would always take care of her. I knew I was lying to her. I cannot promise her or them that they will be safe at school or anywhere. The victims of the shooting in Buffalo are still being buried, and in Texas, some parents had to take DNA tests to identify the bodies of their children who were mangled and unrecognizable after the attack.
Youth at the "Never Again" rally in Tallahassee, Florida, to protest and change gun laws after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School. Feb 21, 2018. Photo by KMH photovideo via Shutterstock
So far this year, there have been 27 reported school shootings in the United States. We live in a double-standard society where we want to prevent children from learning about ethnic studies or hearing the word “gay” in an academic curriculum, but there is no gun control or criminal background check.
I curled up on the top bunk with Mika. She let me hold her and fell asleep restless. She had nightmares. She woke up every two hours and when I felt close I wondered if I already knew what the children's names were and if they had already told their parents that they had died. Then I caressed Matías, I whispered to him that I loved him. I spent the night watching them, thinking about those times that they’ve stressed me ever since I knew they were in my womb. I promised to love them from their first breath to my last and I am terrified of losing them without being able to do anything.
No, condolences, thoughts, and prayers are not enough. It's not a minute of silence, it's a life of muffled tears.
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Maritza L. Félix is a freelance journalist, producer, and writer in Arizona. She is the founder of Conecta Arizona, a news-you-can-use service in Spanish that connects people in Arizona and Sonora, Mexico, primarily through WhatsApp and social media. She is the co-founder, co-producer and co-host of Comadres al Aire. She is a JSK Community Impact Fellow at Stanford, IWMF Adelante, Feet in 2 Worlds, EWA and Listening Post Collective Fellow and one of the media leaders of the Executive Program in News Innovation and Leadership in Journalism at the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY.