You’re mad. Boy, oh boy are you mad. You’re picketing. You’re sending emails. You’re leaving voicemails. These messages are being sent to your school district. Your principal. Your president. Your county health department. Your dog catcher. Anybody who has any air of authority is taking it from you right now.
The Facebook groups are burning up the internet. Your tweets and snaps are loud and consistent. Hell hath no fury like a football or soccer or marching band or cheer squad mom or dad right now.
I get it. I do. Pouring the thousands of hours of effort and money into getting your kid to participate in a high school activity. All of the hours of Pee Wee games. All of the soccer camps. All of those band camps in 102 degree heat. And now it’s all in jeopardy of being wiped away for a year or more.
Your letters to the editor, your petition campaigns, your impassioned pleas to local news — all directed at a leadership structure you feel is taking this opportunity away from your kids. Like they all met in the back of a 7-11 and tried to come up with a design that would screw you with your pants on.
You have every right to be mad. You have every right to feel every stage of grief. Anger. Sadness. Denial. Binge-watching Celebrity Housewives.
But let’s be clear here. You’re mad at nature. You’re mad at a virus. You’re mad at God.
Mayor Quinton Lucas or the Platte County Health Department or the superintendent of your local school district is no more to blame for these decisions as the Celebrity Housewives are. We hired and elected them to be our leaders. And they’re making incredibly tough calls under unparalleled circumstances. Mayor Lucas gets to introduce Patrick Mahomes at the Super Bowl parade, but he also has to tell folks to wear a mask into the Costco. Not because he wants to. But because it’s the safest thing his experts are telling people to do so that thousands more people don’t die.
There is no perfect answer here. And it sucks that some of your kids can’t march at halftime this year, or you might not be able to attend a soccer game. I’m wrapped up in that too, as the father of a high school athlete. I’m just as pissed as all y’all. But I can’t be pissed at people who are trying to do what’s best for me and my family. I can only be pissed at the circumstances around us. Nature is undefeated when it comes to trying to kill us. And sometimes it gets really good and efficient at it. This is one of those times and until you find the email address for Mother Nature or the Almighty, save your chanting outside the health department and save your Facebook petitions.
This didn’t get real for you in March when everyone had to stay home. It didn’t get real for you in May when you saw refrigerator trucks being pulled up to hospitals. It got real to you when they told you Timmy can’t play outside linebacker on Fridays. I get it. It’s real for me, too. I’m at the 58th level of angry. (Which is to drink a lot AND binge watch Celebrity Housewives). But I’m not angry at my leaders who are trying to do what’s best. I sympathize with them. They’re in an impossible position. And now that it’s real for you, maybe you’ll take as many steps as possible to ensure this goes away before next football or marching band season.
Or maybe you’ll just post on Facebook.
(Follow Chris Kamler on Twitter where he is known as @TheFakeNed)