Imagine on a seemingly normal Wednesday just over 16 months ago, around 12:30 p.m. getting a text from your son-in-law saying he is in a panic because his wife, my daughter, Amy Wald St. Pierre, was not answering her phone from a doctor’s office where he has learned there was a mass shooting.
Imagine having to wait until 6 p.m. that evening to get the news that indeed, it was our Amy, having been hoping against hope all day that she had been locked down somewhere and not able to answer her phone.
Credit: Handout
Credit: Handout
Imagine having to tell your 5- and 7-year-old grandchildren that their mommy was never going to come home again. Imagine them after only 16 months beginning to forget the details of their mom, your daughter, whom you try to remember every single thing about. Imagine this heartbreak and trying to remind them of their times together, while trying not to make them sad.
Imagine your always-thoughtful daughter calling you from Your DeKalb Farmers Market to ask if you needed anything and then realizing when she died two days later that that was the last time you would ever talk to her. I am thankful I don’t have to imagine her last words to me were “love you” as we hung up, because they were.
Imagine receiving your own child’s Certificate of Death in the mail and reading Cause of Death: Multiple gunshot wounds.
I do not have to imagine all of this because I am living it. This is my life. Everything since Amy was killed has been measured in how long before or after her death. Don’t worry about mentioning Amy to me as if I weren’t thinking of her and would be upset. She never leaves my mind or heart.
Sadly, Amy’s murder by gunfire on May 3, 2023, was not the last mass shooting of the year. There were other shootings in Atlanta, and thousands of others have died by gun violence in Georgia and across the United States. So many children have been killed by unsecured guns, and so many people with mental illness have been able to buy guns and use them to end their own lives. Apparently, my daughter’s death and their deaths were not enough for our legislators to respond with sensible gun reform legislation instead of the proverbial “thoughts and prayers.” Will this latest mass shooting in Apalachee High School be enough?
Children are afraid to go to school. I am afraid every time I enter a public place. I look for the exits as soon as I enter. I do not dawdle or shop around in the mall. I rarely go to the movies, which used to be a weekly activity. At stop lights, I smile and look ahead, afraid a crazy person with a gun might be beside me and having a bad day. I don’t want to be so fearful, but this is my life. I’m thankful to be able to share my grief with a therapist who is helping me sort through this unfathomable traumatic grief. She and the support from loyal friends and family are helping me get through this, though I know I will never get over it.
I am able to get through most Wednesdays now without crying at 12:07 p.m., Amy’s time of death, but on the 3rd of every month I recognize one more month has passed without my daughter. I still think of things I need to tell her and then remember she is no longer here for me to tell. My husband and I hold each other up when a song plays that is reminiscent of her and when another milestone or celebration for her children passes without their mommy. She should be here for them and her husband, for all her family and friends and colleagues from her Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Maternal Mortality team, with whom she worked with such devotion and dedication. Amy should be here.
How can it be acceptable that she and so many others have died by gun violence? How can this be OK in Georgia, in the United States? We must vote for people who do not find this acceptable and who will work to pass sensible gun responsibility legislation. Our children and grandchildren should not have to fear gun violence in their schools. I should not have to live in fear, either.
I often think that our legislators will not do anything about guns until a catastrophic event happens in their own families. I would not wish this pain and sadness on anyone, so I hope my plea, along with many others, for sensible gun safety legislation is heard before more children die. Amy wasn’t a child anymore, but at 38 years old, she was still my child, my only daughter, a good, loving person who supported others and had so much more to offer this world. I will always believe that she is still a part of our lives and our love will live on. That I do not have to imagine.
Susie Wald is the mother of Amy Wald St. Pierre.
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