You can’t kill all of us
To the editor:
You can’t kill us all you know.
You can’t kill all of us mothers.
All of us nurses.
All the protesters who appear out of nowhere by the thousands — whose people came from everywhere around the world for generations back — who step up and take the places of those you murder, those you kidnap and these tens of thousands are everyone. Carpenters, physicists, waitresses trash collectors, teachers. Skilled workers and unskilled swarms of poor and wealthy, healthy and sick, aged and teenagers. Walking, singing, peaceful, adamant.
We sure scare you. You cling in rat packs, hide your faces, shoot aimlessly, repeatedly at you know not what — something that is coming for you, that will get you.
The nurse who helped two old ladies you gassed. The mother of three who said “I’m not mad at you.”
Just stop. Put down your guns, take off your mask, go home. You probably still have some people who care about you, who can forgive you and take you back. Each day you will be more isolated, unloved, guilty and ashamed, angry that we make you attack your own people. As we push, move, grind this moving mass of murder you are from our streets, parking lots and homes, you become more terrified, more violent.
You are right, eventually, we could come for you all. But by then you will be running, hiding, hoping your mask also protected your family We probably can forgive you and move on. We do want our country back, and … you can’t kill us all you know.
Mary Lewis Sheehan
Pine Island