COURAGE IN THE FACE OF FEAR

COURAGE IN THE FACE OF FEAR
- Maria Herndon

He walks to school without our nostalgic school memories. The active shooter drills have become numbingly routine. Yet, all the medias speak to him of the reality of short spent youth. He worries about that loner that everyone avoids near the school cafeteria. He's puzzled by the weird fringe groups rebelliously, relentlessly always around. So, he bobs and weaves his way through the angry, the radicalized...the terrified. What was that?! He's embarrassed to freak out. It's probably someone poping a milk carton by stepping on it again.

.
He carries courage in the face of fear.


Feeling overwhelmed, she still knows to be aware of every moment they have together. Things are fast, awkward and so out of focused in the morning but she wants to make sure she gets some kind of smile, hug or at least eye contact from her newly very independent 16 year old as she drives her to school. As she approaches the school, that same thought flashes comes...just for a second but every time it comes. ‘Will she be safe?’. She waves as her daughter blends in with the other students. Would it happen here? Yet she does not want to become numb. This shouldn’t be normal. But she has to function. For her. For herself.

She carries courage in the face of fear.


He flips on the lights of the classroom as he’s done for over 24 years. He opens the blinds and looks out on to the middle school running track. He rubs his spectacles with his handkerchief thinking about another active shooter drill scheduled for that day. Things have changed so much. Kids were always kids but since Columbine the art of teaching has taken on a more stark reality. Now, it gives his students a way to dream and in the short run a way of normalcy. He hopes he will never experience one of those tragically surreal days with his students. A teacher these days is much more than a teacher. Too much more. Thank God more. 

He gets some supplies out from one of the closets for the day’s lesson being hyper-aware that he must leave at least two closets completely empty to make room for the hidings. The heavy wooden desk sits right next to the classroom door torturing the feng shui of the room. Nobody sits at it. Its drawers are empty. It serves a higher purpose.

He carries courage in the face of fear.


He is a professional. He has triaged in Afghanistan as well as here at Memorial Hospital. He goes on automatic pilot. He sorts the injured from the dying; the dying from the dead. He knows he can only do so much. He knows he can only do his best. But these teens... these children... they’re so young. Just trying to learn. They’re just trying to find out who they are. They just want a friend. But it's that moment, when he stops resuscitation, look around and down at his shoes to make sure there's no blood on them before going out to talk to the family. He puts his coat back on, takes a deep breath because he knows that he has to tell a family that the worst thing imaginable has happened.

He carries courage in the face of fear.

The call comes into the station at 7:53 AM.

He arrives and looks into the side window. He saw broken glass, and the bodies of the principal and a school psychologist. He knows this is going to be worse than anything he has trained for. He enters the building and found a group of students hiding in a storage area. He gets the teachers and students from three different classrooms together and tells all the students to call their parents and let them know they're OK. Very carefully and as quickly as his training would dictate, he goes from room to room.  He finds bodies strewn about; the last of which was the gunman. He's all in black along side his long gun. The door swings open behind him. 

He carried himself with courage in the face of fear.

The Senator arrives early enough to hear only his steps down the Capitol’s hallway to his office. He has to arrive before the protesters. It’s not like they tug at his conscience; he just finds them annoying. On Senator McConnell’s most benevolent days, he just feels they don’t understand. His way of keeping any sense of power... to fill up his empty spaces is to - no matter what - keep being the Senate Majority leader. It’s not a right or wrong thing. Why can’t they understand that. In other words, it’s not a moral issue.

He is in denial about surrendering his power of the Senate to the monstrous powers from on high. Yet he affectionately calls himself “The Grim Reaper” - silencing the pleas, the work, the cries from constituents.

As he passes his secretary’s office he gives a teeny smile and waddles his chin on his chest.

It’s 7:53am.

He is a coward in the face of fear.