MARCHING FOR A BETTER TOMORROW

My Line of Sight

Marching For a Better Tomorrow

An open letter to the students from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School and all those involved in the March for our Lives movement:

Dear young people,

I am so impressed by your desire to cause change to our nations gun laws. Your voice and message are clear, articulate and vitally needed at a time when politicians would rather bow to the wants and needs of special interest groups like the NRA, rather than stand as a body preventing more carnage in our schools and communities.

As someone that has had a gun pointed at my head, I know full-well the terror that takes over your life. When I was told by the gunman that robbed the restaurant I managed over four decades ago that I only had one chance to open the safe, or else, I did not want to find out what ‘or else’ was, I remember it as vividly as if it were yesterday

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Considering our mutual disdain for weapons in the wrong hands, I have three suggestions for you. To continue moving forward you must insist, resist and persist.

Continue to pressure your legislators by insisting that your goal is to save future lives of students. Insist that mental health workers work closer with school systems and authorities like police agencies with information about those that may do harm to themselves or others.

Some among you may grow tired of this struggle; resist that temptation by remembering past struggles from such people as Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Junior and countless others who knew they still had miles to go. It wasn’t that long ago that the Occupy Movement was born but it didn’t take long for splinter groups to develop within the movement and before long they lost sight of their goals and it wasn’t long until their resistance was non-existent.

Fast forward your lives forty or fifty years from now and think back about the journey you’ve taken. Out of all your life experiences you will be able to say that you were a part of something much bigger than yourself. You can say that you played a role in causing change; change in the Florida State Legislature, you sparked a fire across America that became the March For Your Life Movement, and the lives of those future students that could be saved from injury or death, and you did it with persistence, the ability to go on through the struggles and resistance to change.

Finally, don’t forget the essentials that make life a real trip; don’t take ‘no’ for an answer, do pick your battles but don’t be afraid to fail. Don’t forget to laugh, even if you’re the only one laughing, and if you need to cry, well, that’s OK to. Just take a deep breath and keep on going, and we’ll see you on the other side.

Keep moving forward, and thank-you. …For today, that’s my line of sight.