Before this war, I thought I was a quiet person.

Ukraine taught me that’s not true

I just hadn’t found anything loud enough to fight for.

Now I can’t shut up.     Viktor Kravchuk

I came across this post on Substack and it spoke to me as clearly as if Viktor was in the same room with me. I too am a quiet person. I have always preferred to stay at the back of a crowd. I enjoy being anonymous when I go out and about from my home. I work best in small groups where I feel comfortable and unlikely to be challenged for my ideas. I suppose that in my essence I am shy and a follower of rules and yet I have found myself again and again in the uncomfortable situation of speaking up for people whose voices were not being heard. 

I think that the first time that I broke out of my protective shell was when a group of boys were taunting one of my dear friends and threatening to throw her into the deep end of a swimming pool in spite of the fact that she was screaming for help and declaring that she did not know how to swim. Before I even thought about what I was doing I found myself standing in front of them and demanding that they put her down immediately. I suppose that because they knew me to be a little mouse they were stunned by my furor and handed her over to me without another word. I was still shaking and wondering in my mind where I had found the courage that I needed in that moment but I never let them know how frightened I actually was. 

The next time I had to assert myself was when I was twenty years old and my mother was showing horrific signs of her mental illness. I turned to every adult that I knew and none of them seemed to know what to do. They essentially stepped back and told me that I would have to figure it out on my own. I found a psychiatrist through a family doctor but was still so unsure of how to proceed. Ultimately I found the courage to become her voice for over forty years. Again I was in wonder of how my aggressive tactics had developed because I still believed that I was essentially unsuited for the many fights that I had to endure in the name of saving her. 

I had always believed that I was a person of quiet resignation who simply accepted the realities of life but over and over again I found a voice inside of me that surprised me as much as it did the people around me. I became an advocate for my students and for the teachers with whom I worked. I saw injustice and was unable to simply back into the warmth and familiarity of simply being quiet. I realized that there were some issues so important that they required me to fight with a determination that was unstoppable until the people about whom I cared were safe. 

Now I find myself embattled in a cause that is bigger than anything that I have ever before attempted to set right. I feel as though I am watching the slow but deliberate destruction of the delicate democracy of the United States of America. I marvel at the coincidence of the two hundred fiftieth celebration of our nation and the deliberate ignoring of so many of the tenets of our Constitution. I don’t want to keep writing or protesting but now like Victor I can’t shut up.

Victor is from Ukraine. He has watched his country being invaded by Russia and little by little being torn apart. He has seen whole villages pillaged and watched the young men of his nation dying as they fight the invader. He knows that he can no longer be quiet. This is not the time. This is a moment when everyone must find a voice and those voices need to come from all over the world. 

We should all be enraged by the horrors happening here in the United States and across the globe. We should be standing in unison with Pope Leo who has understood that he too cannot be quiet about the death and destruction being wrought on innocents in so many places. I too feel the need to condemn the bloodshed and the destruction. Have we not learned anything from history? 

I want to return to writing happy blogs about vacations and childhood stories. I long to feel secure in the belief that the people of the world are doing fine. I like being quiet, sitting in the corner just observing life. Still, in this moment I must fight.