You don’t have to be an informational savant, outgoing, or a natural with people like Charlie Kirk to make a difference, I don’t think. Sometimes finding even a soft voice can count.

My existence is very close to Emily Dickenson at this point; I’m somewhat of a hermit and have gone days without talking to anyone. When I was young, I was so shy my mother forced me to attend various youth and leadership events all by myself to make me figure out how not to be shy on my own. I’m still desperately introverted and can barely stand being around people for more than a few hours. I feel bad bothering a clerk or sending back a wrong order, so I don’t. I’m almost apologetic when someone has to stop what they’re doing to ring me up at the till. My friend gets exasperated because he says I’m such a low-talker in restaurants and public places he can’t hear me. I just don’t want to be rude and force my voice on other people, I explain. Everyone is so loud and yammering on their phone or playing stupid videos in the midst of public places that I don’t want to add the noise During flight training, I was gently scolded for not talking more in the post-flight debrief.

Perhaps this is why I write. My voice is mostly written.

Today, though, to avoid going looney, I decided to do a little writing work at a local coffee shop. I sat down with my hot chocolate (coffee is yuck) and started writing. A man and a woman sat down at the table near me.

At first I didn’t notice much, because I was concentrating on my writing. But then their conversation wormed into my ears, and I realized they were talking about Charlie Kirk. They were using the usual talking points—he was a Nazi, a homophobe, a bigot, hateful—all wrapped in the usual “no one deserves to die but…” garbage.

I felt instant rage.

I might not be effusive or outgoing generally, but when I lose it I lose it big. I’m not proud of that; controlling my temper and my mouth is probably why I choose not to say too much when I’m not around family and my one or two close friends. I seriously can lose it. My friend had to hold me back from a fisticuffs with a drunk woman at a campground, but that’s another story. Kind of like my dad, who is pretty quiet and doesn’t say much but when he loses it, you need to move overseas and as far away as you can because oh boy. I’d like to note my “I speak the blue languages” grandpa was a boxer at one point, so there’s that.

Anyway, I listened to these two talk, and tears came to my eyes once the rage subsided. All this talk of “now we must foster unity and conversation” feels like so much garbage when they killed the guy who wanted to have conversations and my serious question about the desire to attempt uniting to people who have evil and hate in their heart (do not be unequally yoked) cannot be shed easily.

These two were average left-leaning people, found everywhere in this nation, having a conversation amongst themselves, nodding and agreeing and sure they understood the lay of the land, the world, and the people around them. They dehumanized him; he wasn’t a person, but an abstract problem that was solved in a way they didn’t technically approve of, but didn’t totally mind, either. My guess is few bother to speak up to them because we’ve been cowed into silence assuming that leftist progressive schmaltz is the going currency.

September 10 says otherwise.

I put my things away, back in my bag. I gathered my keys and stood up.

“Excuse me,” I said quietly. The woman looked up, her thick-rimmed glasses sliding down her nose a bit. I wanted to say so much. I wanted to argue what they’d said, point by point. But our actions and demeanor are as loud as our words. What should I say in this moment? What would stick with them the most? An argument? A witty comeback? What? I paused a moment, thinking of what I’d heard them say about who they thought Charlie was. And then I said “Charlie Kirk was a good man.”

I said his name. I disagreed that he was evil and that he wasn’t human by saying he was a good man. And then I turned and walked away.

Maybe they laughed. Maybe they bad-mouthed me. Maybe they did a lot of things. But maybe they’ll start to think…was Charlie Kirk a good man? Was it possible? How did we not know someone sitting next to us at the coffee shop was mourning his death?

I don’t know.

I’m not going to get in a fisticuffs (we don’t go to that campground anymore), but I’m not going to stay silent. I think we can quietly and resolutely say, with even a few words, that we are Charlie Kirk, and we are here, right next to you, we are human, and our ideas and our lives deserve to exist.