I went out for a walk the other night around 8:30 pm, when it was heading toward dusk. As I walked down the sidewalk near our home, a little girl approached me on bicycle and said, “hello.” I greeted her back and complimented her on her bike riding. I sensed she was heading home.

She was probably around eight years old, and I couldn’t help thinking  how lucky she is to live in a neighborhood safe enough that she can ride her bike at dusk.

When I was a child, our neighborhood always felt safe. Summer was a time of magic, joy, and wonder. My sister and I lived outdoors until dinner. Even after dusk, we sometimes played games outdoors in the dark, with only the lightning bugs, moon and stars as illumination. That’s how safe we felt. That freedom is not commonplace today.

As parents and grandparents, we must call on our leaders to find a way to take us  to safer times, where citizens can safely shop in supermarkets, and children can attend school without fear of gunshots ringing out…a place where bombs and mortar shells are not falling in distant lands disrupting the lives of families overseas, and endangering the lives of our men and women fighting for freedom.

Whether we are Democrat, Republican, or Independent, and no matter our ethnicity or spiritual inclination, we all want the same — safety for our families and friends, that we may be allowed to love and learn and enjoy leisure in peace.

Let us work together — leaders and “political adversaries,” neighbors and friends — to find solutions to problems, mend grievances, and return the world to a place where children will feel safe walking through the school doors and riding their bikes at dusk.

And if we cannot find those leaders who can bring peace and safety to the world, may we find the courage and wisdom to become those leaders. Our world demands and deserves nothing less.

Originally published in the May 26 Issue of Beyond the Nest, in the aftermath of the Supermarket shooting in Buffalo, NY, and the school shooting in Uvalde, TX.