There are losses
that do not arrive
with casseroles.
No folded flags.
No clean ending.
There are deaths
that don’t just take bodies -
they steal futures.
Stealing quiet walks
with dog dads and mothers.
Is this what we’ve become?
They’ve stolen
quiet Tuesday mornings
with Morrie.
Snuffed out coming birthday candles
and replaced them with yahrzeits
and descansos.
Robbed us of the ordinary miracles
of everyday life, and everyday people.
Tonight we speak three names
so the silence does not eat us,
or forget them.
Say their names.
Renee. Keith. Alex.
Say her name:
Renee Good.
She was not meant to be a headline.
She was breath in cold Minnesota air.
A transplant already contributing
to her vibrant, diverse community.
Her hands on a steering wheel - harmless.
Turning away
toward grocery lists,
warm coffee cups,
what dinner she might make
for her family that night.
Unaware of the mortal danger
looming around the corner.
And for what?
And the violence - so fleeting.
And the perpetrators, fleeing.
Only after vandalizing
the crime scene.
Witnesses said they smelled the fear
and frustration of federal agents
tasked with our public safety.
Grown men
shoving helpless women
onto concrete streets.
They said they felt the ripe, lawless energy.
Saw the putrid satisfaction,
of those who crowned themselves
judge and jury
On these tragic days.
No due process.
No final goodbyes.
No return
Of that Honda Pilot home
Just the gutter spit
of ******* *****
History says this:
Power always grows paranoid
before it collapses.
Mistaking motion and dissent for threat.
From chariots to carriages to cars -
the frightened empire
always fires first
and justifies later.
So we speak for those
Who were silenced,
Memorialize the future
They were building
In the present.
And we become the ritual.
Continue the good fight.
Remember.
Witness.
Carry their names forward.
Build on their blood and sacrifice.
Leave the world less cruel
than we found it.
Say his name:
Keith Porter.
Midnight fireworks
blooming over California skies.
A father’s laugh
reverberating into a new year.
Children waiting for morning pancakes.
A life interrupted by suspicion
disguised as authority.
In old villages
they rang bells when a father fell.
They stopped work.
They held the children close.
They said:
This matters.
Today, the noise never ends.
And the clocks don’t stop.
The news keeps updating.
The system shrugs.
And we go home -
Beaten down
by the brutality of it all.
But we rise again,
Ring the bell
Raise our voices,
Let our instruments sing,
Offer our gifts
In sacred memoriam.
Keith was not disposable.
Joy is not criminal.
Unless you go looking for trouble,
For storms clouds in clear skies.
Say his name:
Alex Pretti.
A healer.
A nurse.
Hands trained
to stop bleeding -
not cause it.
Phone in one hand.
Mercy in the other.
Guarding another human being
more vulnerable
than himself.
And in an instant
the hyenas swarmed.
A hero was
tackled.
Beaten.
Shot.
Silenced.
And applause
for the death
of a man who applied gauze
to veterans.
In ancient wars, medics
were protected by sacred agreements.
You do not **** the one
who carries bandages.
You do not shoot the one
who kneels to help.
But modern uniforms
have forgotten ancient rules -
and human ones too.
Alex stood between harm with hope.
Between what is right,
And what is easy to ignore.
Between an open hand,
And a closed fist.
We must continue to stand and resist
The hateful violence with the same grace
and hope that they did.
This is the grief of the unlived life.
The futures they never got to meet.
Grandchildren who will never be.
Songs that will never
reach their final movements.
Every empire collapses
under the weight of its buried truths.
We are living in a bone graveyard
Full of unwritten chapters -
Frost over unfinished soil.
Rome fell.
Kings fall.
Walls fall
(just ask Berlin).
Not by swords alone -
but by people
who refuse to forget.
Who stand arm in arm,
looking out for neighbors,
for community,
under a merciful God
who loves everyone equally.
The irony?
They said it, first:
“All lives matter.”
It just doesn’t hit home
until you bury your own.
And some have had the privilege
To turn the other cheek
On the brutality they see.
Any of us could have been
Alex. Keith. Renee.
On any given day.
If that doesn’t haunt you,
nothing ever will.
Still, they are present with us -
in every march.
In every candle.
Every prayer and vigil.
In every voice
that dares to speak about justice
in an unjust world.
We are tired.
YES.
But exhaustion is not surrender.
It is proof we still care.
We do not carry this rage or sadness alone.
We also carry this responsibility together.
To build a world,
where uniforms again protect
instead of terrorize.
Where immigrants,
strangers in a strange land,
Are not strange fruit…
But the backbone of our society.
To be a nation again with a conscience
And a moral compass,
Who understands that none of us
Lay sole claim to the land or the sea,
Or who gets to be a “citizen”
Of this country.
Where joy is not suspicious.
And where just mercy
and protecting the meek
Is celebrated,
not fatal.
There may be no official ritual.
No government ceremony.
No sanctioned mourning.
But hear this:
We are the ritual, now.
We are the archive.
We are the living memory.
Renee walks with us.
Keith walks with us.
Alex walks with us.
Not as ghosts -
but as the fire
that refuses to die.
History is watching
what we choose to become.