When is enough truly enough?
It had been a year since I got my new car. My roommate and I went shopping to get some essentials. I was driving. It was back in 2004 when I was living in South Florida. She wanted some school supplies, so we decided to go to Target; it was right across the street from the parking lot we were in.
A six-lane ‘street’ that did not have any traffic light or a stop sign to make way for crossing traffic. I managed to cross halfway and waited; around the same time, an 18-wheeler switched to its left lane, waiting to turn into the parking lot we drove out of. It completely blocked my view of the oncoming traffic. I decided to wait until the truck turned, but the person in the car behind me started honking at me to cross.
For a split second, his persistent honking made me wonder if he could see the oncoming traffic better and if he was signaling me to cross. I started driving. When I turned my head to look at the oncoming traffic, my roommate and I screamed. An SUV was coming straight at us. It was just a couple of feet away from my car!
Luckily instead of freezing after realizing the inevitable, I hit the gas peddle as hard as possible. The SUV hit my sedan on the right side of the trunk and sent us spinning. When the car stopped, we were shaken but miraculously were not hurt. The kind SUV driver came running toward us, asking concernedly, “ Are you kids ok?”. He then guided us to drive into the parking lot, and we exited the car to examine the damage. Soon the cops came, and their first words were, “Another one at this junction! You are all fortunate; not many have made out alive after an accident here.”
My first question was, if it is so common, why is there no traffic light at this junction? How many more accidents have to happen before a traffic light is installed? The cop just shrugged helplessly and said he didn’t have an answer for me.
When is enough truly enough?
Yesterday as I watched the news of yet another gun violence that took the lives of precious children, the same question haunted me again.
How many more children have to die before we change our gun laws?
I remember one time when we lived in Tanzania, my father's friend visited us from Kenya. My father casually asked him about his life in Nairobi. His answer shifted my view of what safety meant. He said, "When I leave for work in the morning, I can’t help but wonder if my family will be alive when I come back in the evening, and my family wonders whether they will see me again." The poverty in the 90s had made this their new norm.
When a person is hungry for days, maybe a human life becomes less valuable than stealing some money to feed themselves and their own family. But what kind of hunger stops our senators from voting for stricter background checks before gun sales?
It’s 2022, and there have been more mass shootings than days in 2022. Like every parent I know in this country, I am exhausted, and we are tired of giving our prayers and condolences. We are crying alongside those parents who have lost a child through these senseless acts of violence. Give us a chance to vote directly to end this madness. We are not moving on.
Heartbroken and helpless,
Nisha
