At 20, Camden Cimorelli finally found a job he enjoyed: laying specialty flooring.

His father, Frank Cimorelli, a former pitcher for the St. Louis Cardinals, became cautiously hopeful that his son’s life was starting to turn around.

Cam had struggled with angry outbursts as a young boy after his parents’ divorce. They figured he was having trouble adjusting. But by the time he was 11 or 12, his parents knew something was seriously wrong. They took him to doctors for help. He was admitted to one of the best psychiatric hospitals in Milwaukee, where they lived. Doctors diagnosed him with ADHD.

When he was released a week later, he was no better. He didn’t like how the medicine made him feel. The family tried four or five different medications. Cam refused to open up to his therapist. His parents knew he wasn’t getting the help he needed.

“We felt so helpless the entire time,” Frank said. When Cam would spiral, they would take him back to the hospital, where they'd keep him a couple days and then send him home. He probably ended up at the hospital 10 times over the years, his father said.

Doctors never gave their son another diagnosis even though he sometimes experienced hallucinations and paranoid delusions. But he also had periods when he was more stable, like when he found the flooring job.

That was the happiest his father had ever seen him. Cam was a funny, smart, big-hearted young man. He was a loyal friend and had a way of charming others. He also loved talking to his grandfather about guns.

One day, he called his father excited about purchasing his first gun.

“My heart sunk,” Frank said. “I felt like his fate was sealed at that point that day.”

At 18, Cam could walk into a store in Wisconsin and legally buy a gun -- even with a documented history of psychiatric hospitalizations and suicide ideation. There was no red flag law to stop him, no place to share a doctor’s warning. The majority of states lack red flag laws. More than 27,000 people died by firearm suicide in 2023 -- about 58% of all gun deaths.

Cam was doing well -- even supervising a flooring crew -- until something in his brain switched again. Around age 23, the hallucinations, paranoia and angry outbursts came back. He was at his father’s home in December 2022 when he walked down to his bedroom with a hoodie balled up over his face.

“What’s going on?” Frank asked. Cam took the hoodie away. He held up thumb and index finger to make a gun gesture with his hand. Cam had shot himself under his chin. The impact blew out all his teeth and destroyed his jaw. Frank called 911.

“I didn’t know if he was going to die in my arms,” he said. “If politicians had to see his face that day and didn’t do anything about it, I'd have a whole lot of four-letter words to describe them. If that was their kid, and they saw that and went to work the next day and did nothing ...”

Cam was rushed into surgery. He had tested positive for COVID, so no one could go into the hospital with him. For 12 hours, his family had no idea what was happening.

By some miracle, Cam survived the suicide attempt. He spent the next several weeks in the hospital having multiple surgeries to reconstruct his jaw and face. When he was discharged, his parents took him straight to a psychiatric hospital.

They begged doctors to keep him for intensive inpatient treatment. He was there for five days, then the doctor called and said they were sending him home.

“We knew if he came home, we knew something bad was going to happen. We couldn’t help him or watch him 24/7,” Frank said.

Sure enough, 24 hours after coming home, Cam was dead.

The autopsy was inconclusive. Doctors suggested that an electrolyte imbalance might have caused death in his already weakened state.

Months later, when Frank finally went into Cam's room, he found little white things scattered around the floor. He started to clean them up and realized they were his son’s teeth.

Frank has spent the last year telling his son’s story to anyone who will listen -- on social media, at gun violence prevention events and in meetings with lawmakers. He says he’s not against the Second Amendment or anti-gun.

“I don’t worry about responsible gun owners,” he says. But he is furious that nothing stopped his son -- a young man who experienced repeated mental health crises -- from getting access to guns.

The medical system failed Cam. But the gun industry and NRA-funded lawmakers helped kill him.

Growing up, I heard my father describe America as “the greatest country in the world,” and it made perfect sense, given his core beliefs and life choices.

He chose to leave his homeland and family as a young man for the proverbial better life in America. He believed wholeheartedly in the foundational values of freedom, justice and liberty for all.

Perhaps he wasn’t as well-versed in the details of our country’s darkest chapters. Maybe he hadn’t lived here long enough to repeatedly witness the ways in which his adopted country fell short of its highest ideals. Conceivably, he had not yet felt betrayed by the country’s leadership.

At any rate, his love for this country had made such a deep impression on me that I literally cried when I read the unvarnished history of America as a teenager. It taught me that the truest form of patriotism is embodied by those who have fought and sacrificed in the pursuit of freedom, justice and liberty for all.

Immigrants and their children have levels of patriotism that match or exceed those of native-born Americans, according to research by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. In its 2021 Immigration and Identity National Survey, it found that an overwhelming majority (80%) of immigrants say they feel grateful to be Americans.

“They say this despite being more likely to report experiences of being treated like an outsider,” the report stated. “For instance, first-generation immigrants are more likely than the third generation and higher to say that others frequently or occasionally presumed they were not American (51% vs. 10%), confused them for a store employee where they didn’t work (45% vs. 31%), called them racial slurs (39% vs. 20%), or made negative comments about the food they ate (40% vs. 20%).”

Many immigrants and their children can separate how they might be treated by fellow Americans from their faith in America’s institutions -- such as courts that uphold the rule of law and the Constitution, a free press unafraid to call the powerful to account, and fair elections that represent the will of the people.

So, what should one do when institutions fail to protect the core tenets of democracy? When corporate media has cowered, the will of the people has been ignored or outright overturned, and your leaders’ actions resemble the authoritarian governments your parents fled?

So many things I never thought would happen in this country have now happened: a man convicted of multiple felonies and found guilty of sexual abuse elevated to the presidency, due process eliminated, mass purging of inspectors general and government watchdogs, aggressive consolidation of executive power, dismantling of civil service protections, decimation of federal agencies, suppression and criminalization of dissent, undermining and ignoring court orders, withholding billions in federally approved funds, disappearing people off the streets and erasing entire chapters of American history.

The hypocrisy of so many institutions and individuals has been laid bare for all to see.

These are dark and discouraging times for our republic.

While it’s tempting to try to simply ignore the constant onslaught of bad news, to disengage and try to survive as best as one can, that’s not what the true patriots are doing right now.

Look at the millions of people who have taken to the streets to protest the government’s authoritarian actions. Millions more are calling and writing representatives; others are deciding to run for office or registering to vote. Some are getting more involved in providing direct aid to the most vulnerable communities. I hear the voices of those consistently speaking out against the abuses of human rights perpetrated by the state.

When current institutions have failed, it’s time to build new ones. More news consumers are turning to independent or nonprofit sources; several long-form podcasts draw larger audiences than cable news shows; an upstart candidate, Zohran Mamdani, toppled a political dynasty in New York; and grassroots initiatives are focusing on local civic engagement.

This is what Americans have done throughout our history.

This is what love of one’s country looks like.

Six years ago, doctors removed an aggressive, cancerous tumor the size of a Twinkie from the right side of Matt Mertens’ brain.

The surgery was necessary to save his life. But it came with known risks.

“I went into surgery pretty normal, and I came out with my whole left side paralyzed,” said Matt, now 48. It took him six months to regain some movement and learn to walk again. He says he “walks like a pirate,” and he mostly relies on a scooter or wheelchair for any extended period of mobility.

Prior to his diagnosis and surgery, Matt lived an active life -- hunting, fishing and building.

He can’t do much of that anymore.

“This has been a life-changing experience,” he said. “I can’t put my shoes and socks on by myself.”

He continues to work as a fleet manager at a manufacturing company and relies on his wife, Stacy, for help with day-to-day tasks. They have four children and have lived in the Monticello West neighborhood of O’Fallon, Missouri, for the past 19 years.

They are among the 75 million Americans who live in an HOA-managed community. That’s more than 30% of homeowners nationally. These private organizations set and enforce rules for property owners in their jurisdictions, and members are required to pay fees. Failure to follow the rules can lead to fines -- or worse consequences, such as placing a lien on private property, or even foreclosure.

The Mertenses had never experienced any problems with their HOA until recently.

In December, they received an email from Libby Schubert, their neighborhood representative for Community Property Management, the company that manages their HOA. The email included a photo of the family's Weber grill in the top corner of their driveway. They were instructed to remove the grill and a nearby table, the placement of which was found to be in violation of rules.

The Mertenses requested a meeting with the HOA board to explain their situation.

In the meeting, held on May 21, Stacy explained to the board that the family uses the grill year-round, and that her husband -- who is disabled from his cancer treatment -- cannot physically go up and down the stairs leading to the back patio. Even if he could get to it, the patio doesn’t have enough space for him to turn around, given his disability. He can’t push or pull heavy objects, so he’s unable to move the grill and table into the garage every time he uses them.

Matt parks his truck on the driveway, so the grill isn’t even visible from the street when his truck is there. A large, landscaped bush blocks the view from the side. Not a single neighbor has ever complained to them about it.

The board was unmoved.

According to the Mertenses, the HOA president told them they needed to get their priorities straight: Either stow the items when not in use, or sell them. They were told that if they did not resolve the issue by Sept. 1, the rule-violation process would resume.

Stacy and Matt were devastated and angry by the lack of empathy and respect shown to them.

I reached out to the management company, CPM, to ask about the situation, and Schubert sent an email: “On 5/21/25 the homeowners met with four members of our HOA board, and one member of our HOA management company. All fines were waived, and a corrective plan of action was agreed to by the homeowners.” CPM declined requests for interviews with employees or board members.

The Mertenses said they never agreed to a “corrective plan of action.” In fact, Stacy has researched St. Charles County’s fair housing policy, which prevents discrimination against individuals with disabilities. She has filed complaints with the county and with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

“The lack of empathy and compassion, and the inability to see humans as humans” has upset her the most, she said.

The overreach, pettiness and abuse of power by HOAs around the country have been reported and debated for years. In a culture where appearances matter more than human dignity and compassion, HOAs can attract petty tyrants.

This small squabble speaks to a much larger issue: the trickle-down effect of cruelty as policy and empathy as weakness.

Matt said he wants to hold on to one important part of his pre-cancer life. The cancer and surgery robbed him of so much of his independence: He’s had to give up working in his shop in the basement, hunting, fishing and most other physical activities. But he’s been barbecuing since he was a kid. He’s passionate about his grill and smoker.

At least once a week, regardless of the weather, he’s grilling pork steaks, chicken thighs or smoking a chicken in the rotisserie to feed his family. He’s made meatloaf stuffed with peppers and cheese and a ribeye roast out there on his driveway.

He doesn’t like to talk much about how the cancer and the surgery upended his life.

“It’s been hard on the whole family,” he said. “I don’t tell most of my friends because it’s embarrassing to me.”

But he and Stacy felt compelled to speak out and fight back against the HOA’s unrelenting battle against the barbecue.

“We’re just so appalled that they really don’t care,” Stacy said.