separation

I just saw a picture this morning of brown-skinned girls lining up on the way to be separated from their parents at the border. And I paused to consider.

As a child, when I came eagerly home from school and walked in the doorway to our kitchen, if Mother wasn't there on the very rare occasions and a note was on the table indicating a quick errand, I can still feel the letdown. She wasn't there for me to tell her about the afternoon - I had just seen her for lunch - and it felt really wrong, and lonely.

Now I don't pretend to be comparing my privileged, safe, comfortable lapse of an hour of maternal presence to these children at the border. But I think I can take my sand-grain of missing and magnify it a million times and then maybe get to the doorway of what these children must be feeling. As a child you want the presence of your mother or father in the way that you want food, water and air to breathe.

Of all our sins as a nation, this separation of parent and child sits at the head of the class.

I grieve for them.... and us.