Journalists began calling me two days ago, as I knew they would.

It happens after almost every tragedy: from the New York Times and NPR when the novel Coronavirus struck down hundreds of thousands; from WIRED editors when the Supreme Court overturned Roe vs Wade; from various venues in the wake of mass shooting. They do so because I specialize in death and grief. I write about pain, about loss, about what we do when death comes; about our right to grieve, and how it has changed — and how it’s changing us.

But now, 21 people are dead at a school in Uvalde, Texas, 19 of them children, and it’s time to admit a horrifying truth: ours is the grief of the powerless.

On May 24th, an 18-year-old gunman walked into a school, unobstructed, and opened fire. He’d brought two assault rifles, purchased on his 18th birthday a week before, easily and legally (in Texas). He shot his grandmother, then proceeded to mow down children. Children. Like the child that appears on the advertisement for one of the rifles — a photo-op of a young boy holding the rifle on his lap, with the caption: “Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”

The stories that follow shatter me.

• A first responder named Angel Garza arrived at the scene and provided medical aid to a blood-soaked girl. She told him her best friend had been killed, murdered, left in the building. Her friend was Garza’s ten-year old daughter Amerie. She died while trying to call 911.
• Alexandria Aniyah Rubio was recognized that day for All-A honor roll; she was joined by others, all of them smiling in their photos. All would be killed hours later.
• Two teachers, Eva Mireles and Irma Garcia, died trying to save their students. They have been described as “vivacious” and loving, “spreading laughter.”

There are more. So many more. Every one a bright light, every one snuffed out. The town is in mourning. We are all in mourning. And then? A day later, the state of Ohio (where I live) declared its move to make it EASIER to buy guns. On Friday May 27th, three days after the shooting, the NRA will be holding it’s pro-gun conference also in Texas. Meanwhile in Washington, members of Congress offer thoughts and prayers in exchange for NRA campaign contributions. (If you are curious, here is the list of those receiving money from NRA — some upwards of 10 million).

The loss of 21 lives has changed nothing. It was the 30th shooting at a K-12 school in the year 2022 alone, and that fact changes nothing, either. I spend my mornings on the phone with reporters and colleagues, consulting not on gun control but on what we are to do with all this grief.

Today, I’m saying something else. I’m angry and tired and empty and broken, with my righteous grief and rage spread atoms thin over all the horrors we still must face. This is not a placation, conciliation, or appeasement. This is a manifesto.

Grief, Rage, and Powerlessness

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) recently added a category for diagnosis called prolonged grief. In prolonged grief disorder, the bereaved individual may experience “intense longings for the deceased or preoccupation with thoughts of the deceased, or in children and adolescents, with the circumstances around the death.” The individual experiences “clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning.” The DSM acknowledges that losing more that 600,000 people to Covid has made it more “prevalent,” and we may add the continual eroding of women’s rights, LGBTQ+ protections, and accessible healthcare as additional causes. But the DSM also states that “In the case of prolonged grief disorder, the duration of the person’s bereavement exceeds expected social, cultural or religious norms and the symptoms are not better explained by another mental disorder.”

Exceeds the expected norms? How long is too long to grieve the loss of your child? To miss the sound of their footsteps in the hall as they come to tell you of a nightmare? To miss the smile they give you when they see you waiting by the bus stop — or catch your eye at the school recital? There will never be enough time, because grief is not a common cold that you suffer and get over. It is more like an amputation; you carry on, but you have lost a part of yourself and no activity, no moment in your life, will ever be the same. It lingers like long Covid, affecting who you are after. We are never, ever the same.

And yet, there is hope.

We are not powerless in fact. We have been made so. Grief can be paralyzing, stultifying, exhausting. And we are grieving on so many fronts — Covid deaths (and blatant denial plus anti-vax campaigns), abortion bans and the loss of rights (including the threat of arrest for miscarriage), attacks on trans youth and legislative assaults on LGBTQ rights (re: Don’t say Gay, etc). In every one of these cases, as with anti-gun control, the attacks are being waged by well-funded conservative and Republican interests. But they are not the majority. They are a minority very good at imposing their will. They know this, and so aim to divide and distract, to corner and consolidate power. And it’s time to stop the “doom loop” of their rule.

With Grief comes the Power of Unity

In 1978, Václav Havel published The Power of the Powerless, describing life under Soviet communism and how best to resist a totalitarian system. In it, he explains that even those who seem to have the least capability in the system have inherent power to resist. What it takes is convergence, unity, alignment.

Diversity means we are all engaged in different battles all the time; it makes it easy to distract us. But whoever you are, wherever you live, you know grief. You know loss. You have lived with death intimately, in your own life, in your own living room, inside and under your very skin. We all have. We all do.

That’s why the journalists call me; so I can remind them that we are allowed to grieve, and that grief should be public and shared. The strange, modern idea that not grieving is the normal state of living must be debunked. The most “normal” relationship of life to death (if ever there is such a thing) is a state of constant negotiation of grief. Rather than hiding it away, rather than attempting to carry on as if nothing happened, I propose that we return to the communal roots of our tribe. Our grief is shared; we hold it in common. By this, we are united; united, we are stronger. Let us not be convinced to overcome our grief — but to use our grief to overcome.

We talk about the stages of grief — denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. They might be useful for thinking about how we travel this path, but it’s time we re-think the end point. It’s true that depression can be pathological, can damage us, can require medical treatment. It’s also true that living in a constant state of rage is hurtful and depleting. But “acceptance” should not mean acquiesce, should not mean we take out sorrow and go away quiet. The Uvalde children SHOULD still be ALIVE. Their deaths were preventable. We know the solution. And we should never give up the power of our anger, nor accept that there is no better way — not so long as this country refuses to be legislatively accountable for mass murder.

Fifty-four percent of Americans want gun control. Ninety percent want background checks. In 2022, a year not yet over, 142 children under the age of 12 have been murdered (303 injured); 516 under the age of 17 have died, with over 1000 injured. None of these are suicides (that’s an additional 264). Like Amerie, Alexandria, Eva, Irma, and all the others in Texas, they had birthdays, smiles, parents, friends, and dreams. All cut short by a gun in a country without proper gun control.

We know legislation works. We have proofs in other countries, from Scotland to Australia, Norway to New Zealand. The only thing required is a change of law. Let us no longer listen to weak-willed arguments claiming we have no “answers.” No ragged, empty offers of thoughts and prayers. No gutless arguments about good guys with guns. Every member of Congress who has voted against gun control? Hold them accountable. Every one that has taken NRA money? Accountable. Mitt Romney, who claims “Grief overwhelms the soul” and accepted 14 million from NRA backers? Accountable. Gun maker currently protected from law suits by the Gun Manufacturer Immunity Act? Accountable. Challenge. March. Demand. Vote — vote like our lives and the lives of our children depend upon it. Because they do.

Grief does not leave us. The loss of a child is never ‘got over.’ We must make time for our sorrow, but then, I hope at last the grief of the powerless may become our power for change.