Dear Congressional Representative,

I am so tired today, aren’t you? I’m fighting a cold and my 18 month old is sick and my husband is having a hard time with his chemo treatments. I started a new job last week and I’m managing the stress of getting the kiddo off to his grandparents or his nanny share every morning and all the different logistics and checklists for myself, my baby, and my husband are kind of overwhelming.

My son got really sick on Monday. We ended up having to go to urgent care for his first ear infection, which, because us Willhelms do everything to the extreme, turned out to be in both ears, plus an acute viral infection in his throat. No wonder he wasn’t drinking any fluids. I had to leave him at home on Tuesday, which was so hard because I both wanted to be with him and desperately wanted to work at my new job so I could have some respite from the constant onslaught of logistics and management all day long.

See my husband, he’s 47, was diagnosed with Stage IV Colon Cancer in November. It was really sudden. He had no symptoms and it’s a type of cancer that can’t be detected through the annual colonoscopies or CT scans he was getting to monitor his Crohn’s Disease. Hell, we had been saying that it was best he had felt in the 10 years we had known each other. What a kick in the ass to find out it was Stage IV cancer.

But anyway, he was home with the baby on Tuesday and I had to keep saying silent prayers and checking in to see if he was doing ok because he’s immunocompromised. And a cold, which was already tricky because of his Crohn’s, could be devastating with the chemo.

But we had no other options, right? He couldn’t go to his nanny share. We didn’t want to get her kid sick, too. Grandparents, while they are amazing, we try to use them judiciously and a sick baby for a whole day is a lot to deal with. So he stayed home, fatigued from the chemo with a fragile immune system that I hope holds up to this bacterial and viral onslaught.

So in addition to the sickness of the baby, we’ve been managing the cancer: the treatment, the grief, the upset to work. Thank God he has an employer who actually cares about him and is making our lives less hellish by actually making it easy for him to work. He’s the Master Electrician at the Seattle Repertory Theatre, a big regional non-profit theatre that he’s worked at for 20 years. He LOVES his job. Like in a way that tells you someone has been paired up with their true calling.

But I write today not about his healthcare (thank God for his union’s good coverage) or the lack of affordable daycare, or the difficulty I had finding work with two Bachelor degrees and a Master’s degree and the crushing amount of student loan debt I got following the advice to “get more education” so I could get a good job. Today I want to write to you about guns.

You totally knew that, though. The little form online made me tell you that. So, spoiler alert, I’m feeling mad about the recent shooting in Parkland, FL.

I grew up in South Florida and moved to Seattle in 2008 after college. My sister in law is a teacher, my brother’s best friend and his wife are teachers. I don’t fear for their safety every day, because statistics means that it’s unlikely that the shooting will happen at their schools. But, what about when statistics catches up with me? What happens when my son, who isn’t in school yet but will be eventually, because we believe in the public school system, what happens when his school is the site of something like this? How on earth could I live with myself if I didn’t do my due diligence to make my fear and anger known to those who actually have the power to do something?

But then I pause and think, “What the hell is the point? The Dems did their one sit in and nothing happened.”

And now you have so much you are fighting for: healthcare, taxes, Dreamers, general nonsense from fellow lawmakers who seem to have forgotten they are governing people and not faceless voting blocks or donors. How can I, in good conscience, add to your list of struggles?

But really, how can I not? My son’s life is on the line.

My son’s life is on the line.

Do you have kids? I think you do. So, you must know this fear. The fear of motherhood where you let a piece of your heart walk around outside and the strings of worry and love and strength stretch from you to them in a way you didn’t know about until you had your child. I didn’t know the vulnerability I would feel until I held my son in my hands (he was 5 weeks early so he was little) and realized just how vulnerable I would be for the rest of my life. I could be made to do anything for him.

My husband’s mortality is something we are dealing with every day. We don’t know if he will kick the cancer and survive or die a young death, but his mortality that is literally in question right now does not feel as fragile as that of my son’s and his future classmates.

Please, for the love of God, do something.

I listen to NPR and watch CNN and read the New York Times and listen to Pod Save America like a good liberal does. I work very hard to break down internal bias and fight for equity and help my husband and those I can affect learn more about sexism and racism and ableism and fatphobia, but you have got to help me here. I need to take something off my list of things to worry about and fight for and my son’s safety in his school really needs to be one of them. Please.

So, what do you need from me? I’m joining a local mom’s group to be an activist for change in firearm legislation. I support local government and vote in every election. I donate to campaigns when I can and to charities and the odd GoFundMe for people who can’t afford medical care or need to send their kiddo to a once-in-a-lifetime ballet camp. What else can I do to make our country safer and better and less hard to live in?

Thank you for your guidance. I promise I will take the information you give me and be a constituent you will be proud of. Just don’t send me something like “donate to the blah blah blah.” I can’t do that anymore.

Thank you,

Verhanika Willhelm