I hadn’t meant to sit up front. I just picked a random picnic table in the cool shade of the shelter and guzzled my water, unsticking my shirt from my sweaty back as a breeze blew through. Our march from Unity Park through downtown Greenville was a couple miles long and I’d forgotten my hat. And my sunglasses. And my sunscreen. (So much for being an adult!) At least I remembered my orange shirt. I was there for Wear Orange Weekend, after all.

A woman I didn’t know sat opposite me. I’d heard someone call her Darlene.

I’m just beginning to get to know the people in our local Moms Demand Action group, hearing their stories about why common sense gun legislation is important to them. For me, I think of all the kids in my life, including my grandboys. I remember when Josiah started kindergarten and had to crowd into the bathroom with his class during drills. I remember the accident he had late one afternoon because he didn’t like going in there and tried to put it off as long as possible. I also think of Todd’s Uncle Harold, who was killed in a workplace shooting. That man was funny and smart and so kind to me.

I hadn’t heard Darlene’s story. Maybe I’d ask her next time.

Before the program even started, I knew the speakers would pull my heart strings. How could they not? In addition to a local mom, Cindy Bogan, Malcolm Graham was speaking. Malcolm’s sister, Cynthia Graham Hurd, was murdered by Dylann Roof, along with 8 others, while praying at a Bible study at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston.

Cindy was up first. Thanks to my front row seat, I could see the large font of Cindy’s notes when Dorothy handed her the microphone. Whenever I have to talk to a group, I always print my notes in large font too.

I could also see her hands shaking a little. Mine do that too.

Cindy wasn’t new at this. No, it was clear she’d told the story many times. She told it powerfully. Beautifully. Like she had to tell it. Jeffery was her precious only child, and on New Year’s Day in 2019, someone shot him in the neck in a road rage incident, paralyzing him from the chest down. At twenty-three-years old, Jeffery’s life was changed forever.

It was obviously hard, telling the story of her broken heart and holding the microphone and all her papers. Dorothy noticed too. She stepped beside Cindy, took her papers, and held them up for her to see.

Cindy spoke so skillfully, helping us understand Jeffery’s experience and her experience. Some of our group knew about that kind of pain, having lost loved ones, children, even, to gun violence, and that’s why they marched. That’s why they carried signs, why they wore the orange shirts, why they answered the questions of curious people along the way. Cindy’s situation was different. Thank God it was different! She hadn’t lost her son. She could talk to him anytime she wanted, and he could talk to her! She wanted us to hear that she’s grateful. SO GRATEFUL that she has him on this earth, but her heart is still broken.

Cindy shared the brutal details of how tough it was for Jeffery to go from being a typical young adult to a prisoner in his own body–one who needs help in bathing, in toileting, in caring for his one-year-old son, for whom he has full custody. She told us about Jeffery’s battle with depression, how hard it was to hear him crying out at night. Loud. Desperate. As Cindy’s voice shook, my table-mate Darlene stood up.

What was she doing? Was this really the time to step in front of the speaker?

No. She was moving around behind them. What was happening?

As Cindy continued talking, Darlene positioned her body to serve as a wall that Cindy could lean against. Back to back, Cindy shared her deepest fears. What will happen to Jeffery after she’s gone? Will he be sent to a nursing home, surrounded by people so different from him, so much older by many decades, so many suffering with dementia? His mind is so sharp! Will he be alone?

Darlene stayed close, offering her back until the end.

After the event was over, I told Darlene that what she did bowled me over. “It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen,” I said.

Darlene sort of shrugged. “I wanted her to know I had her back. So I gave her mine.”

I’m still kind of new to Moms Demand Action, but it seems to me that’s it right there, exactly how the movement works. It’s a bunch of moms—and dads and grandmas and grandpas and people who care–all kinds of people who are willing to have all our backs–and lend them theirs along with their legs, as they walk through their communities and the halls of their legislators, to fight for public safety measures to keep our families safe.

I’m thankful for all of them.