One of my favorite movies is the 2005 movie “Crash.” It’s a tapestry of lives woven together, showing our deepest frailty and humanity as they intersect with one another. Humans trying to do their best with the programming they have, from the complicated ways they were all raised, and the beliefs they were taught to hold. As these humans come into and out of each other’s lives, you experience the ripples of imperfect people holding onto each other and releasing each other as if they are gasping for air that can only be found in one another, only to find out that this very air that can save them can also undo them. One of my favorite lines from the movie is “We miss the sense of touch so much that we crash into each other just so we can feel something.”
As humans, we have this incredible capacity to care, to tend to one another, to hold each other in our deepest losses and richest joys. Like a nest wrestled together with sticks and stones, we have the capacity to use our lives and our words as spaces to care for one another as we imperfectly wrap around each other.
“How incredibly complicated we are as humans.”
We also have the capacity to destroy in our search for love—ravaging the nest, tearing it apart stick-by-stick, stone-by-stone, scrutinizing it for any sign of love that exists, while simultaneously undoing all the love that built it. We’re all searching for love and belonging. Sometimes that search builds beautiful things. Sometimes it tears them apart.
Since kindergarten, I have walked my kids into school, to their classrooms, and every morning their teachers have been outside waiting, hugging children as they enter. “Hello, beautiful children,” their presence says. “We see you, we want you here, we’re excited for you to be part of this community.” On our way in we would pass our assistant principal blasting fun music, calling EVERY child by name. And before that we would walk by our principal, opening car doors at drop-off, welcoming each student personally, and ensuring their safety as they transitioned from home to school. These aren’t just educators. These are extraordinary humans who understand that safety begins with belonging and love.
The day of the shooting, I ran to pick up my children at Wilmot. When I finally got to hold my son and daughter, relief flooded through me. But in that same breath came devastation: some mothers were racing to hospitals, not school parking lots. Some kids didn’t go home that day.
The moment that broke me open happened as we were leaving. My daughter, who had just lived through trauma, turned around and went back toward the building to hug her art teacher. She went back to the place of fear because her love was stronger than her fear. This is what choosing love over fear looks like. This is how we rebuild.
We are all capable of undoing the nest, especially when our very sense of belonging feels threatened. We are all also capable of rebuilding that nest, especially when we do it together.
Weeks later, we’re still here. Still choosing to build rather than tear down. Still showing up for each other as perfectly imperfect humans.
One of my favorite scenes in “Crash” is when a woman is in a life-or-death situation and has to depend on the help of someone who had hurt her previously. He has his hand out reaching for her, trying to rescue her, and in that moment she has to make the choice to grab his hand, to be cared for by the person who hurt her. How incredibly complicated this is. How incredibly complicated we are as humans. And yet, it was in accepting the care in an imperfect way that she lived. In the movie, so much was healed in that one moment of receiving care. It began the repair after the rupture.
Here we find ourselves in the repair after the rupture, rebuilding our nest, stick-by-stick, creating our spaces of safety, of love, of belonging. Acknowledging how incredibly complicated it can be and how very simple, as we hold our hands out to one another, not building our own separate nests, but weaving our sticks together, creating something stronger than any of us could ever build alone.
To our beloved Evergreen educators who daily offer their hand to our children to love and protect, especially on this day, we thank you—we see you.
To our beloved Evergreen Fire/Rescue, who tended to all victims that day, we thank you—we see you.
To Matthew Silverstone, who was so courageous—we are so sorry, we thank you, we see you, and we honor you. May you be healed and may you know how deep this community’s gratitude and love is for you.
To Matthew’s mother and family—we grieve alongside you, we are so terribly sorry, we love you, and we see you.
To every single child who went on lockdown that day—we are so sorry, we love you, and we see you.
To our Evergreen High School students who will forever be changed by this day—we are so sorry, we love you, we see you, and we believe in you with all our hearts.
To every parent who holds this day—we see you, we hold you, we care for you.
And because this world is so incredibly complicated, and knowing that love exists even in the darkest places: To Desmond Holly—I offer my hand out to you; I am so sorry this felt like the only way. I see you, I hold you, I care for you.
