I grew up in a city where gunfire drowned out conversation in living rooms. Where children learn to lie on the floor under their prnets so that bullets will kill the parents but the kids might survive under the corpses. Where armed men walk into homes to take your food.
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I remember escorting female family members past armed gang members brandishing their guns so we could go grocery shopping. Female family members chased down the street by groups of young men. A female family member imprisoned and raped before being dumped out again.
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Now I live in a place where people don’t kill each other in the street. Children aren’t stepping over blood on their walk to school. Men aren’t dead from overdoses on the benches outside the public library. 911 doesn’t return a busy signal on weekends.
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How could I not be happy? How could I not smile? My children are growing up in peace, in a place of safety. It isn’t urgent to teach them to hide from the killers if we are killed first. I don’t have to escort female family members, they can shop safely for their groceries.
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How could I not be cheerful? To people raised in safety, a safe town feels boring and they itch to move away. But to someone like me, a quiet rural town is like a promised land. Like a safe paradise for my family.
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In rural America I found safety for my family, freedom from violent men, and peace from my nightmares. And that is all the reason I need to be happy. In light of what has been before, what reason could I have not to be happy? What reason do you have, friend, not to be happy?
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