Five Minute Friday: STILL

Five Minute Friday: STILL

Here is a stillness that I can’t fathom in any way, shape or form: the stillness of the lost lives of the children in Sandy Hook who were massacred six years ago. Also, the stillness of the migrant child who died after she and her father crossed the US-Mexico border seeking asylum.

I have an acquaintance in a running club who used to ask us to run every year for Chase Kowalski, one of the children killed in the massacre, who was one of her child’s classmates. I looked her up today. I’ve been a little out of the running world (okay – I’ve been totally out of the running world but it is still a huge part of my social life). There she was, still running in Chase’s memory along with her own child, now (obviously) much older, just like Chase would be.

It is unfathomable, still, that Chase is still. So still.

The same for the 7-year-old from Guatemala. As I heard her name, Jakelin Amei Rosmery Caal Maquin, read, I thought, “is it possible I met her or one of her family members of community members when I went to Guatemala?” Guatemala is a big country, so it’s unlikely, but all of these people seeking asylum immediately bring to mind the people I met in Guatemala, the little girl (Estela) our family still sponsors.. Tenley and I were looking at her most recent picture the other day. She was so little when we first started sponsoring her in 2011. Now, seven years later, she is becoming a young woman. Her uncle said to me, as we were meeting her for the first time, “how much would it cost to come to America?” And it didn’t matter, because any amount I had said — $6, $60, $600, $6000 — would have been out of reach. But the question was one, not of “how can I have an easier life?” but “how can I have opportunities to work, freedom to say what I think, a vote?” (Obviously I am just inferring what I think he meant, but no one I met there would be unwilling to work hard, strenuously hard, for the opportunity to make a decent living and have safety for their children.)

***end of five minutes***

I usually listen to music while I respond to the Five Minute Friday prompt, and I often try to choose something related to the theme.

Tonight, I left the the music silent.

It just doesn’t seem fair to be entertained by having the air filled with sound when the souls of the Sandy Hook children and the little girl from Guatemala are so still.

Welcome to this week’s Five Minute Friday. Our instructions, via creator Kate Motaung: “Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation.” (But I can’t resist spell checking, as you can imagine.)

Paula Kiger

Wife of one, Mom of two, Friend of many. My pronouns are she/her/hers.