For such a time as this….
I am haunted by these words. In February 2020, I saw it coming. The virus would come our way, there was no stopping it. I was still on targeted chemotherapy (Kadcyla), and also still working, even attending Court in Bergen County as late as February 14, 2020. But there was already an air of paranoia. People were panicking long before the lockdown. I was preparing emails and instructions for the office in anticipation of the lockdown. The weekend prior to March 13, 2020, I went to dinner with my husband at a local steakhouse with the best salad bar in town, intentionally enjoying the shared hunks of cheese touched by strangers. I gleefully attended the kids’ indoor soccer game that Sunday in March, before it all came crumbling down. I knew that by the next weekend, all the fun would be done.
I knew when school closed through Spring Break, that there would be no return before September 2020. I signed my boys up for private, mask-free daycare in July 2020, where they have attended without incident or illness. They have lived normally, safely, in the care and companionship of teachers and friends willing to hug, kiss, comfort, wrestle and play as intended.
We played the hybrid school game in September. We toned down some activities again in December/January 2021, but still saw our friends and family. The vaccine came, but the country’s paranoid behaviors and planning just wouldn’t abate, particularly in the upcoming plans for school in Spring and Fall 2021. I began to research and connect with like-minded parents across the country, exchanging thoughts, but laying low amidst the desperate race to vaccinate our State. It wasn’t the right time for demands.
By February 2021, I felt the call and the desire to help others shed their depression and anxiety that mirrored the feelings experienced at initial diagnosis I experienced in the cancer treatment process. My grandmother, Esther, was wallowing away in the solitary confinement of life in a nursing home. In my distress of observing society’s inability to shrug off the paranoia and zombie-like subsistence behaviors, I shared my woes with a co-worker and mentor of mine. Lew, both a lawyer and former Rabbi, handed me a print-out from the Old Testament, an excerpt from the Book of Esther, Chapter 4. In particular, verses 12-16 called to me:
“When Esther’s words were reported to Mordecai, he sent back this answer: ‘Do not think that because you are in the king’s house you alone of all the Jews will escape. For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to your royal position for such a time as this?” Then Esther sent this reply…I will go to the king, even though it is against the law. And if I perish, I perish.”The words struck me. I was safely in a bubble of enjoying the privilege of private daycare, and only minimal mask-wearing for my one son, but how long before King Murphy came for my safe space?
The time was coming for me to end my silence, for me to be the voice for my sons, and for others without the same luxury of normalcy that I had purchased for my boys in private care. In March 2021, on the one-year anniversary of “15 days to slow the spread” arrived, life was no closer to normal and I knew in my heart that I could not trust the government to make the right decisions for the children of our State.
On March 13, 2021, I wrote my sons a letter in the journal I keep for them to read as adults someday, after I am gone.
“Dear Brody & Carson,Well, happy 15 days to slow the spread-the one year anniversary.
Sometimes in life, you have to choose between obedience to civil law, or adherence to moral code. Choose the moral code, try to follow the civil law. When it becomes oppressive to follow hypocrites espousing arbitrary and capricious civil obedience rules that violate your Constitutional Rights, then it is your God-given duty to object, withdraw consent, dissent and deny compliance.
Do so peacefully, respectfully, and in good time. You don’t have to be the first horse out of the barn.
Learn the law. Civil & moral.
Love, Mama“It’s time, folks. Horses are already out of the barn. The time is upon us all to unite and to withdraw consent, dissent, object, deny compliance. Find your way and your words. If you stay silent at such a time as this, then you may as well just turn in your Constitution. You won’t need it if you are too afraid to exercise its protections in such a time as this.
The data and science are on our side. Now, you must be on the side of the children. Be their voice, protect their health. THAT is your right and duty. You do not owe the world protection from an ever-changing politicized narrative of a virus that is not statistically significant in the population being punished-school children.
SAVE YOUR CHILD. SPEAK UP.
Go to the School Board, the Department of Health, the Department of Education, the Legislature, the Governor, any body of authority and DEMAND the health and wellness rights of your children. That is your sole civil duty.
We stand together. No horses back in the barn this year. Get off the bench and join the team for freedom.
https://open.substack.com/pub/chaosandcontrol/p/end-silence?utm_source=direct&r=pa2zr&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web