My Day of Atonement, and Children Born after 2072
by Mary Maxwell, PhD, LLB
I was surprised to receive correspondence from so many RMN readers as to the Sandy Hook matter. Yesterday the US Supreme Court announced that it will not take the case. That does not faze me. "Who needs 'em?" We can still proceed to establish the truth.
On other fronts there are so many onslaughts that one can hardly cope! Nuclear war proposals, lying about the vaccine deaths and injuries, imminent food shortage, financial havoc, etc. And despite a major election event coming up in 34 days, I hear no debates about the "reality" of those things.
Today is Yom Kippur. I'm not a Jew, but I know that their solemn holy day has to do with atonement for one's sins. It strikes me that my big sin, at the moment, has to do with failure to protect children. I have just re-read my 2019 book Reunion: Judging the Family Court (pdf below) and see that there has been no progress is reuniting stolen kids with their moms.
This has led me to revise my so-called Last Will. I've composed a list of things I won't be able to bequeath to my (putative) great-great-grandchildren. The list also serves as an apology to our forebears for the fact that we 2022 folks won't be passing along much of what their efforts bequeathed to us!
Dear Cherubs,
I had a lucky, lucky life, the parts of which were given to me by my parents, my teachers (nuns), my two countries, our ancient heritage, and by my chance occupying of certain decades in the fascinating 20th century.
For various reasons, including my laziness, my selfishness, my gluttony, my cowardice, and my perfidy towards you, I cannot now bequeath to you what I had always expected to bequeath to you.
Among the losses are:
Privacy. How I loved privacy. How I loved popping onto a Greyhound bus without giving my name. How I loved writing private letters to friends that would not be read by any snoops, much less would be entered onto a record. I enjoyed privacy for its own sake -- it strengthens the person. How I loved doing what I wanted, or nothing, in the privacy of my home. And how I adored the absolute intimacy of totally secret exchanges with my beloved spouse. But for you, it's hidden cameras everywhere.
Dreams of the future. We all thought humanity had a limitless future, and that society was always improving. Thanks to the attention paid to human rights and respect for every individual, it seemed that love and happiness were bound to increase. We looked at youngsters knowingly, that is, knowing that they would have what we had, and more. Knowing that each year of their lives would bring new dreams for them, "cuz that's how it is." But for you, will there be any basis for optimism?
A healthy planet. For me, growing up in the concrete jungle, Nature at first did not play much part. Even when our family was on a vacation at the beach, I didn't "get" the power of the ocean. A trip to Franklin Park Zoo was, well, just a trip to the zoo; I had no appreciation of our animal connections. This got straightened out when I luckily received a grounding in evolutionary biology, from my mentor EO Wilson. The physical beauty of the world opened up to me when I arrived in Australia. I don't know how much beauty is left for you, since my generation destroyed whole ecosystems.
Learning. I guess you will have some chance to learn, as figuring out how to survive will be on your daily list! But this was not so for us. Manna was dropped from the sky. Our idea of learning was that of conquering ever higher areas of knowledge and hopefully contributing to the store thereof. My husband couldn't get enough of art and science. I was happy to pick up some crumbs from him. Oh, to think we are depriving you of the means to discover truth. To think universities are giving their blessing to censorship!
Patriotism. My dad taught many patriotic songs to us as kids, with him at the piano and Mom chiming in from the kitchen. Examples: Tenting Tonight, America the Beautiful, and the Marine Hymn. I'm sure this influenced my trust in America, as music has a special uniting effect on the brain. By now, though, most of the lyrics have lost their validity, as we have all betrayed the legacy of the pilgrims, the pioneers, the Constitution, and the veterans. I'm sorry to say this: we stink.
The pleasure of empathy. Kindness is the opposite of cruelty. You feel sweet and happy when you do someone a favor. You feel great at the mere sight of old friends, or just hearing their voice on the phone. You feel nice when you give, or get, a compliment. Or when you celebrate a communal victory. But lately, cruelty is itself being accepted as OK. What? People are afraid to be kind as it might make them look stupid. I can only hope cruelty isn't "standard office procedure" when you enter the world.
The duty to criticize. Criticizing is one thing that I had no doubt I'd be passing along to you. It used to be a civic duty for us to correct any wrongs we saw in governance. No kidding. It never dawned on me, until as recently as my 70th birthday, that I might undergo severe punishment -- or even get a dirty look -- for reprimanding a mayor or a president. "It's what we do. We own the place." But for you, there may not even be awareness of such a wonderful concept.
How I apologize to you for letting these things slip! They seemed to slip like sand through one's fingers. We honestly did not get the full measure of it, until everything suddenly became unmistakable at the end.
We had enjoyed the greatest, greatest privileges from the Creator. But we failed to understand, although generations before us had explicitly stated, that grabbing everything grabbable meant not leaving enough for you.
So now to you we pass the torch, but it is a torch inevitably deficient in the seven things I mentioned -- privacy, dreams of the future, a healthy planet, learning, patriotism, the pleasure of empathy, and the duty to criticize. Maybe they will yet be restored or maybe you will think up even better things.
I sign off, ashamed.
Mary Maxwell,
Concord New Hampshire, October 5, 2022
Note: I realize that Yom Kippur atonement means taking some action to make up for what one has done. I have no ideas left, having exhausted the legal solutions -- but will be pleased to hear of some new ones. My email is MaxwellMaryLLB@gmail.com. My book on the Family Court is downloadable here: https://gumshoenews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/REUNION_2019.pdf
