What Would Muhammad Ali Do?

This past Saturday, I was especially grateful to the New York Times' editorial staff for compiling an in-depth, special-edition-insert tribute to Muhammad Ali. My children had heard me blather on about his Greatness all week long, but the photos and detailed chronology of his achievements made him real for my girls, who are too young to have known him. It also gave me the opportunity to re-live those magic moments from my childhood, when Ali was a real-world super hero.

On Sunday afternoon, that newspaper insert was still on my kitchen counter when my husband informed me of the mass killings in Orlando: A Muslim man had opened fire on a crowded dance floor in a gay nightclub, murdering 49 strangers and wounding 53 more. He said he did it in the name of the radicalized Islamic State.

It was too soon for publication of the victim's portraits or the lists of their names. From my kitchen in New York, they were 49 unknowable souls. The faces that came to mind were those of my gay friends; and my Muslim friends; and the countless dance floor crowds I've been a part of. Through my tears, I saw the face of a young Muhammad Ali and recalled the soundbite I'd heard more than once that previous week, of his refusal to kill innocent brown people who'd done nothing to him. In the name of Islam, he dedicated his life to peace and brotherhood.

If only he could lift us out of this.