After 40 years, the pain of the empty chair at Christmas still haunts a Milwaukee family torn by gun violence

Khary Penebaker | Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Editor's note: If you or someone you know is dealing with suicidal thoughts, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at (800) 273-8255 or text "Hopeline" to the National Crisis Text Line at 741-741.

Forty. That’s how many Christmases my family has spent with an empty chair at our dinner table.

Every time we put the star on the top of the tree, every time a dish is pulled from the oven, every ornament that is hung, every present opened, we are reminded of that chair.

That empty chair represents more than a missing link in my family. It represents everything that has been missed in my life. The births of my three children. The day I graduated from high school. The day I opened the letter with an athletic scholarship offer to college. Every knee scrape, every bumped head, and six spinal surgeries.

Twenty. That’s how many months old I was when my Mom shot and killed herself.

Zero. That’s the number of memories I have of my Mom giving me a hug.

Forty-two. That’s how many years I’ve spent not knowing the sound of my Mom’s voice.

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Six hundred twenty-four. That’s how many Wisconsinites die by guns each year; with two-thirds of those being suicides like my mom’s.

Forty-five. That’s how many seconds it took Republicans in the Wisconsin State Legislature to dismiss the special session called by Gov. Tony Evers to consider bills that would have allowed extreme risk protection orders and universal background checks.

Thirty-seven. That’s how many minutes the Wisconsin State Assembly spent debating a resolution insisting that the tree decorated with ornaments in the Capitol rotunda be called a Christmas tree. Our legislators appeared to be more outraged over the name of a tree than they were about keeping Wisconsinites safe. When my family gathers each Christmas around that tree, we don’t care what it is called, we care who is missing.

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Twenty-four. Every twenty-four minutes, someone in America shoots and kills themselves. In the time it took me to write this, that’s three more people. In the time that it takes to be published and for you to be reading it, that’s about 420 more parents, neighbors, spouses, and children.

Twenty-seven. That’s how old my Mom was when depression — and a gun — stole her from me.

An extreme risk protection order could have saved my Mom’s life. A month before she took her life, she told her best friend she wanted to die. If extreme risk protection orders had existed, her friend could have alerted her family and authorities and a judge would have reviewed the case, removing from her possession the very object that took her life.

Three. That’s how many people were killed at the Azana Spa shooting in Brookfield, including the shooter’s estranged wife, Zina Daniel. That gun was purchased the day before the shooting through a private sale. Universal background checks legislation would have closed the loophole that allows private sales to go through without a comprehensive background check. It could have kept Zina Daniel alive.

My Mom deserved more than 45 seconds. Zina Daniel deserved more than 45 seconds. Caroline Nosal, Laylah Petersen, Sierra Guyton and State Sen. Rick Gudex all deserved more than 45 seconds.

It’s easy to read all the numbers and feel hopeless, but the antidote to despair is action. Eighty percent of Wisconsin residents support universal background checks. We are not helpless; we are in the majority.

And so let’s begin a real conversation about how to solve the problem of gun violence in Wisconsin — an inclusive conversation that should include people on all sides of the issue. That means people like me who have suffered and those who favor protecting the rights of lawful gun owners.

Every time we have a mass shooting, “thoughts and prayers” are offered by elected officials who then sit idle while it happens again and again.

Like so many others who have been victims of gun violence, my prayers are for one more day, one more hour, one more minute with the loved one we’ve lost.

To paraphrase Pope Francis, first comes prayer, then comes action — that’s how prayer works; without action it is fruitless. Religious leaders like Pope Francis are paid to think and pray; elected officials are paid to take action. Voters have a responsibility to demand it.

Khary Penebaker is a gun violence survivor, Everytown for Gun Safety’s Wisconsin Survivor Fellow, WAVE (Wisconsin Anti-Violence Effort) board member and a Democratic National Committee representative for Wisconsin.