in no uncertain terms

My parents told me and my siblings never to say the word "retard." Still, we called each other "spazzes" with reckless abandon. I grew up in a time when, and place where, it wasn't uncommon for racist jokes to be told with little reflection on the harm they caused. Some were told by my father, whom I didn't consider racist because of his friendship with, kindness to, and deferential treatment of people of different races and nations, including my friends.  

Later in life, it felt troubling when people close to me mocked my gay friends, used the "N" word, called Middle Easterners "towel heads," and referred to homeless people as "winos" and "bums." A friend's husband once used a racial slur to suggest that Black people are lazy. With a pounding heart and a face flush with indignation, I've challenged antisemitic, homophobic, sexist and racist tropes. Years ago, I ignorantly used the slur "White trash." I'll be forever grateful to the White woman I was speaking with who schooled me about the ways in which the term is offensive, wrong and hurtful. I've never said it since. 

Long before Calvin was born, I became sensitive to the bigotry and oppression that non-White, non-male, non-straight, non-Christian, poor, and homeless people face. I owe that to the many African American and gay men and women I've loved, lived with and befriended, and to my Chinese, Japanese, Filipino, Muslim, Latino and Jewish coworkers, friends and neighbors in Seattle, San Francisco and Maine. For years, I've done in-depth study of this nation's systemic racism; research shows racial discrimination occurs at all levels of government and society including housing, healthcare, education, employment, lending, criminal justice and voting. My son Calvin has given me firsthand experience of what it means to live with disability—its limitations, its stigma, its burdens and hardships. It wasn't until after his birth that I learned that children and adults like him were the first of millions to be executed during Hitler's Holocaust. This knowledge has stayed with me, and has further informed my opinions about bigotry and the dangers of otherism.

Despite what I see as dubious foreign policy, blatant and astonishing self-dealing, shady and felonious henchmen, petty and vindictive tweets, and reckless handling of the coronavirus pandemic, it's my love and support for vulnerable, oppressed and marginalized Americans, immigrants and refugees that is at the heart of my criticism of Trump and his administration's harmful policies. I mean, who cruelly separates infants, toddlers and teens from their parents for any reason? Trump does. For someone who claims to be Christian, that policy is the antithesis of godly; in other words, it's evil, and tantamount to terrorism.

As if the past four years of Trump's racist, xenophobic, antisemitic, homophobic and transphobic rhetoric and policies weren't enough, yesterday, I saw a video in which Trump, at a mid-September rally this fall in Minnesota, said to the crowd:

"You have good genes, you know that, right? You have good genes. A lot of it’s about the genes isn’t it, don’t you believe? The racehorse theory—you think we're so different? You have good genes in Minnesota.” 

For those of you who don't know what the racehorse theory is, it's the premise that selective breeding— eugenics—can improve a nation’s performance. German Nazis used this theory as the basis for exterminating those they deemed as undesirable, to advance their attempt at racial purity and strength.

Until now, in this blog, I haven't promoted the full argument that Trump is a racist, despite having been utterly convinced of it for years. However, after watching the video, I can no longer refrain. This time, his comments are so clear they cannot be explained away as being "not racist" or "sarcasm" or "in jest" or "taken out of context." This time, there's no denying the meaning or significance of his words; his message is odious and deliberate, its threatening implications, unmistakable. His words should serve as a caution to anyone thinking of voting for him who does not support White supremacy or Nazism. 

In no uncertain terms, Trump touted the same theory which Hitler employed to murder eleven million innocent people—disabled children and adults, the infirm, the elderly, the mentally ill, gay men and women, Jews, Romanis, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roman Catholics—to a crowd of mostly-White Americans of mostly-German heritage in a state with a growing number of Somali and Hmong immigrants.

After seeing Trump spew his vile words, to then knowingly back him is to choose to secure a White supremacist racist in the most powerful position in the world. His rhetoric goes hand in hand with his long record of using racist dog-whistles—"law and order," "save the suburbs," "go back to where you came from," "America first," "bad hombres"—and is particularly disturbing considering his tacit and overt support of White supremacists and far-right terrorist militias. As cynical as it might sound, it's not a stretch to imagine that his racehorse theory serves as grounds for his administration's promotion of herd immunity, in light of the well-documented evidence that Blacks, Indigenous people and Latinos are two to six times as likely to die from Covid-19 as Whites, depending upon age.

Chilling.

I can anticipate a response to my assertion from some Trump supporters. They'll say they're voting for him because they are pro-life and they are under the impression that he is too. But a pro-life claim rings hollow if one supports a man who espouses such a nakedly racist and dangerous theory used to justify the genocide of countrymen, women and children. Furthermore, any pro-life claim is meaningless if one does not also support social programs that sustain life beyond birth for those in need, such as healthcare, housing aide, food aide, family leave, childcare, pre-K, a decent education, and an interest in protecting the lives and livelihoods of immigrants, refugees and their children.

So, before going to the polls, if you have not voted already, ask yourself what kind of America you want to wake up to every morning.

Edward Muybridge, Horse Galloping, 1878

ridicule

When I attended elementary school in the late sixties and early seventies, children like my son Calvin were sequestered to a separate cinder block building across the parking lot. They rode the short bus. The rest of us kids rarely caught sight of them. Some students called them all the names you'd imagine. Today, my son spends most of his time in his high school's Life Skills (special ed) classroom at the end of the hall. He is seen in the corridors and cafeteria, though is understood by few. In part because he is nonverbal, most of his typical peers and their teachers cannot grasp how complex of a child he is. In this busy world, perhaps they haven't the time or inclination for true understanding. I wonder sometimes what disparaging remarks some students have made behind his back. Though I imagine most of his classmates are kind, no doubt there are a few who whisper insults and slurs, mocking his disability like a certain crude official who somehow got elected.

In what seems like a lifetime ago, last Sunday I tuned into part of the Super Bowl, watching first to see if cameras would capture any Kansas City Chiefs fans mocking the Native Americans whom their team is so regrettably and ignorantly named for. It's astounding that Indigenous people's caricatures are still being used as mascots, their cultures grotesquely stereotyped and dishonored in manners resembling blackface, as if the pillage and pilfering of their villages and land, and the rape, kidnapping and slaughter of their people wasn't enough. And though Native people publicly take offense at these mascots, righteously expressing their disapproval, Whites dig in and stand their ground, insisting the opposite is true, clinging by threads to their disrespectful fetishes. Although I saw no cameras panning across White faces swathed in paint and feathers, when I heard the crowd parody a Native chant, I cringed.

At halftime, Jennifer Lopez and Shakira electrified the field, singing and dancing—indeed celebrating women—surrounded by an army of dark-haired sisters in regalia, their bodies gorgeous and prancing to Latin American rhythms. Clad in sexy sequins and leather getups, they sang in English and Spanish, embraced a feathery American and Puerto Rican flag, parading their talents, strength and stamina. An all-female string section worked their bows in unison. Smiling widely, I got teary seeing so many women own center stage and make such powerful political statements. They celebrated Goddess and matriarchy, Puerto Rican and other Latin Americans and their music, with nods to various cultures peppered into their mastery. 

In an instant, however, some folks denounced the show as disgusting, crude and unfit for their children. What I saw was altogether different, even as I watched it a second time. I saw formidable women take agency, women who no doubt had total autonomy over their production. I saw girls singing, "Let's get loud! Ain't nobody gotta tell you what you gotta do!" I saw gifted women kicking (and shaking) ass, as if to say "kiss mine!" to the intolerant officials who disparage Americans of Color, block the entry of Muslims and Africans, denigrate and separate refugees from their families, putting their children in cages. 

Those who scorned the female performers were likely the same ones watching a field full of mostly-Black athletes like gladiators bash each-other's heads in, risking traumatic brain and other injuries. Throngs of White onlookers—coaches, managers, fans—stood or sat in the safety of the sidelines, bleachers and VIP boxes, drinking beer, chewing gum, cursing and applauding each vicious sack. Boys and girls were also watching the carnage, same as they do in video games, television, and movies.

The condemnation of the female performers reminded me of contemptuous folks who quietly chastise overweight people for wearing bikinis at the beach or pool. I was reminded of the folks who champion dress codes for girls for the so-called sake of preserving boys' precious educations. I was reminded how women and girls are told, tacitly or not, to keep our knees together, to behave, to be ladylike, to smile, to consent, to be quiet, modest, obedient, sedate, yielding, abiding, pretty and chaste rather than fierce, assertive, outspoken, strong, dominant, irreverent. Lastly, I considered how it might please some people if they never had to see kids and adults like my son Calvin drool and limp and writhe in public.

I know what it is to be ridiculed and shamed. As a rowdy tomboy, I was told to wear dresses and skirts. I was scorned for my stringy hair and inflamed acne, even by adults. I've been shamed for how I've looked (too boyish or too sexy), how I've acted (too serious or oversensitive), the friends I've kept and keep, whom I've loved, how I've dressed, and what I eat for breakfast or lunch. I've no doubt but that if Calvin were slightly more able to be independent and mainstreamed, he'd be at times bullied, ridiculed, shunned and shamed for how he looks, and sounds and walks and eats. Likewise, I wonder if the Angolan and Congolese refugees at his school are subject to similar abuse and chastisement by a handful of the most ignorant students and adults.

My best guess is that we've all been mocked, shamed and ridiculed, and have likewise been guilty of committing similar offenses. I too often fail miserably. What are the drivers of these kinds of castigations? I wager fear, ignorance and conceit. My boy Calvin is incapable of feeling these. As such, though he's understood by few, and cannot read or write or feed himself or speak, he is quite the teacher, a rare and pure reminder of how it's best to be.

north star

Last night, while much of the world lit candles on their menorahs, celebrated the birth of the baby Jesus and prepared for the coming of Kwanzaa, I watched my son seize. He had fallen asleep about an hour prior, and just as Michael and I were readying for bed, I heard Calvin screech. When I got to him, he was reclined with all fours in the air, crooked, stiff, and trembling. There on his back, he couldn't breath. Quickly as I could, I unlatched his bed's safety netting and panel then, reaching in, yanked his right arm to turn him onto his side. Soon, oxygen began passing his lips again, which had turned a ghostly shade of grey-blue, his airway having been blocked by flesh or fluid.

Holding him close to me as he drifted back to sleep, I thought about the tens—perhaps hundreds—of thousands of others whose sons and daughters were also seizing, disrupting special gatherings and gift-giving, candle-lighting and festivities. I thought about refugees who had traveled miles, many to be separated from their parents, to be kept in cold cages, slumped on hard floors without their medications. I lamented the cruel way they've been forsaken.

Earlier, Michael and I had been moved to tears upon reading a message that one of Calvin's nurses, Rita, wrote to us in response to my recent post, hard conversations. Within her loving sentiments, she included this prescient quote:

"I want to know if you can get up, after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children." —Oriah Mountain Dreamer

She went on to say:

I have the rare privilege of witnessing you and Michael do that day after exhausting day for years and years and years, perhaps for the rest of your lives.

You chose to share your beautiful, so severely limited son, a child who teaches us great lessons in compassion and loving more. In this gifting season, you all are one of the most profound gifts of my life.

Last night as I tucked him into bed, for the third or fourth time, he curled and cuddled into the covers, in his sweet peaceful way. As I kissed him goodnight, again, he gifted me with his sweet smile. He blesses me with his love. I am so grateful for Calvin.

I'm no believer in the folklore which teaches that Jesus is our savior and lord. But, because I have a child who inspires love, acceptance, compassion and empathy, I thought about Jesus, wishing others were so. And in pondering the stories of Christmas—the wise men, the refugees, the innkeepers—I realized Calvin is most like the North Star, bright and constant, shining on everyone no matter who they are.

Photographer unknown

empathy and betterment

Though the grass is green, this dry spell has the shrubs curled up and thirsty. In their withering, I see myself, stressed and brittle. This journey as the mother of a child like Calvin—a teen who is legally blind, incontinent, nonverbal, physically and cognitively impaired, beaten by seizures and the drugs meant to thwart them—is a hard one both physically and emotionally. I'm chronically sleep deprived, burdened with worry, at times gripped by fear, anxiety and the shadow of devastation and despair. I wish I could somehow flee this reality. My mind is constantly buzzing with dour, unanswerable questions:

when will Calvin's next seizure be? will he choke on a piece of food? will he trip over a chair, run into a wall, fall down the stairs? do his bones ache from growing so fast? will he ever be able to tell us yes and no? will his various caregivers love him, keep him safe from harm? will he get good therapy at school? will he suffer another pain episode? will he ever be calm again? will he outgrow his seizures? will he die from one?

It appears that these burdens and worries most people don't fully understand. I see evidence in the scowls and puzzlement of strangers, in the way some folks avert their eyes when passing us, in the ways we have been dismissed or patronized by smug doctors, hospital nurses, and a handful of school employees over the years. I've little doubt that in my assertive, hypervigilant, helicopter mama-ness, I have haters and eye-rollers. There are those who don't take me seriously, think I'm oversensitive, inflexible, overbearing, unhinged. There are those who run when they see me coming, or who regularly assume the conspicuous and irksome cover-your-ass posture and pose. I wish all of them could walk in my shoes.

As is true with most of this nation's disenfranchised, misunderstood communities—the Disabled, People of Color, LGBTQI people, Muslims, asylum seekers, immigrants—Calvin and I are sometimes regarded with caution, mistrust and fearfulness, even perhaps contempt. I attribute this mistreatment to ignorance and a resulting empathy gap, an inability by some to more fully understand the struggles those on the margins of majority straight-White-Christian-able-bodied society endure, though all it really takes is openness and humility, to listen well and put oneself in other's shoes. But perhaps it's easier to avoid doing that, to stop short of admitting privilege, and less upsetting to avoid acknowledging ugly truths. But denial and indifference to the hardships of others gets us nowhere—as individuals, as communities, as a nation—on the path to betterment.

Wednesday morning, over coffee and a tasty blueberry scone at our favorite Dog Bar Jim cafe, a friend and I discussed the wave of asylum seekers from Angola and The Democratic Republic of the Congo whom our town has recently aided and absorbed. She recounted a conversation she'd had about the African soccer players who have joined the high school team, some who are quite good. Apparently, some parents are bemoaning the amount of playtime the asylum-seekers are getting (I can't help but wonder if their reaction would be different if the students were from Italy or England). When my friend's own soccer-playing son questioned it, she offered him an analogy: if he were to transfer to a new school with weaker players, he might get lots of playtime, too. A thoughtful kid, he understood.

My friend and I went on to discuss how helping asylum seekers is not the zero-sum game some purport is true. For example, we can also help our homeless neighbors and veterans, and we do. Furthermore, asylum seekers, once they're cleared to work, often fill the grueling, dangerous, tedious jobs many Americans don't want—harvesting crops, packing meat, caring for the elderly in nursing homes. My friend told me of a refugee physician who is driving a taxi just to make ends meet.

After our coffee date, I imagined the asylum seekers playing soccer with my friends' kids—one of a million things my son will never be able to do. Some of them speak four or five languages, having picked up Spanish and English on their journey north from Brazil. Many, if not most, traveled thousands of miles through South and Central America having escaped life-threatening circumstances back home. On their trek they survived beatings, muggings, hunger, thirst, and five months of travel on foot, at times through dense forests dark as night, stepping over the dead bodies of other refugees who would not make it to the USA. The ones who made it here are strong, tenacious survivors who likely have what it takes to make the best Americans. And yet, because of fearmongering and ignorance, they are sometimes met with animus and contempt, perhaps even envy and hatred. With this thought I imagine Calvin and the folks who seem to see him—without understanding his purity, love and struggle—as a freak, aversion or contagion.

I wonder what would happen if asylum seekers had the chance to tell their stories. Who would listen? Who would understand? Will these refugees, like Calvin, inspire some of us to become better people, better members of society? Will some of them give rise to other, better soccer players? Who, upon hearing their stories, would feel empathy and embrace them? And who would stand their ground, unmoved?

Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times

unease

Again, I lie awake hours before daybreak. The dark of night seems to magnify my angst. When for various reason I can't sleep, I worry about whether Calvin will seize. Under the covers, I flinch when Nellie yelps in her sleep. I fret about the list of things I need to get done that I don't seem to have the time to do, the things that have piled up during the five-and-a-half weeks that Calvin didn't go to school—sweeping, mopping, dusting (what's that?), writing, reading, researching, filing, calling. I lie in bed, my mind racing, pondering the troubles of the world: war, famine, genocide, waste, poverty, pollution, misogyny, racism, corruption. I think of the human impact on climate and the havoc it is wreaking on our gorgeous Earth. I consider refugees desperate to find better lives for themselves, whom the people of our town and nearby ones have graciously—and some begrudgingly—received.

The other night, after I heard the rain begin to fall, I laid there on the brink of exhaustion and yet buzzing, lamenting the plastic microbeads, bags and bottles choking the ocean, the single-use plastic caps and containers washing up on beaches, the straws and swizzlers and six-pack holders, the syringes, balloons and latex gloves—you name it—that sacred sea life is ingesting and strangling on as we dream. I pondered the tons of toxic materials being released into our rivers, air and seas, and the sleazy politicians who are making that more possible. I grieve the burning of the Amazonian rain forest, the flushing out of its creatures and native peoples. I consider the rabid appetite of greed.

Yes, I lay awake in a warm bed in an ample house having filled my belly with delicious food my husband cooked, thinking about Yemenee people starving to death, and Rohinga refugees being forced back to their tormentors, and hurricane victims having just lost loved ones, homes and belongings. I consider how effing lucky I am, and wish I had the means, like a handful do, to fund everything. I lament that, in this nation of abundance, our fellow humans still live under cardboard boxes or on cold sidewalks while billionaires and certain politicians continue to enrich themselves at the expense and exploitation of everyone else.

While scrolling through my photographs yesterday, feeling weary of the world and of all-things-Calvin, I came across some I'd taken at last year's Bowdoin student art show. The small, framed piece that hung on the far wall of a room where my husband taught a class called Art and Time, was titled, Receipt for a Sunday and the Things Carried There, by a talented and ambitious student, Blanche Froelich, class of 2019. Rereading it reminded me to be grateful, humble, thoughtful, and generous to others; none of us live life without our own struggles, big and small. And the night is not the only time we feel unease.

Detail, Receipt for a Sunday and the Things Carried There, by Blanche Froelich

the ice man cometh

This weekend, the current administration has plans to raid our communities in search of unauthorized immigrants to deport. This will inevitably mean that the families of some of our neighbors will be split and splintered. This means that good people who have integrated into our communities, who contribute to society, many who build our homes, care for our children, cook our food, clean our hotel rooms and homes, harvest our crops, package our meat, and who pay billions in taxes, will be torn from their loved ones and their homes. This means that people, some who have lived in this nation for decades, many who have American wives, husbands and children, and whose children are dear to our own, will be forcibly taken, put into detention and face deportation, their only offense having been to flee hunger and danger, to seek a better life for themselves and for their families, to have claimed asylum.

Keep in mind these ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents will likely not be targeting undocumented European or Canadian immigrants. Why? Because this is a racist policy put in place by a racist administration targeting Black and Brown people who fled from nations south of "our" border. This is an example of White Supremacy. Beware, American citizens will also be swept up in these raids because of the color of their skin. Like this administration's proposed census question, its neglect of Puerto Rico, and its Muslim ban, racial profiling will be at work.

Once again, I am reminded of fascist Germany's Nazi raids of homes like mine, in the kidnapping and detaining of disabled, infirm children before going after other "undesirables"—Jews, homosexuals, Catholics, non-White Europeans. It can happen again, even in this nation, lest we forget our government's internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. Like some Jewish American activists are doing, we should be protesting these seizures and detentions of refugees. We should be shouting, "never again!"

And when it happens, these immigrant and blended families will be left in shambles. Their breadwinners and caregivers will be arrested, detained, deported. Their children will be orphaned. Their communities will be shaken. Their families may never be reunited. We should imagine their fear as our own, and condemn this administration's actions.

Keep in mind these immigrants and refugees who, study after study show, make our communities safer, have committed no crime by claiming asylum on land that was stolen from its natives by many of our White ancestors, its prosperity largely built by slaves stolen from their native lands. These immigrants and refugees are not "illegals." Ironically, their ancestors may have lived in what is now Texas, California, Louisiana. These people are human beings. They love and toil and grieve and bleed just like the rest of us. We have room for them. We'd do better, be better, if we welcomed them. Remember the quote at the foot of our Statue of Liberty:

Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore, Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

Yes, the ICE man cometh. He will wreak havoc, tear wounds in our communities, rip apart families with his sanctimonious contempt for those he sees as threats to his privilege. But know that he is ignorant. Know that he stands on the wrong side of history. Know that his power is withering, his reign limited. Still, beware his acts of desperation. Shelter, if you can, these innocents from the ICE man's chilling grip.

Photographer unknown

secularly blessed

These past several weeks I've been feeling pretty fortunate, lighter and livelier simply knowing that my son Calvin has only had six seizures in a month's time. Granted, all of his seizures have been grand mals, but since 2007 they've been self-limiting, each convulsive fit lasting about about ninety seconds rather than the twenty or forty-five minutes of yore. Six is the rare figure equal to the least number of seizures in any given calendar month since September of 2016 when he had just five. That was when he was on a higher dose of Keppra by weight, and was still taking nearly four milligrams of the benzodiazepine, Onfi. In other words, this past month he's done as well as when he was on far more pharmaceutical medicine, albeit not as well as a nearly a decade ago when, on high doses of three anticonvusant drugs, his monthly seizures were in the low single digits. But back then we had what felt worse even than seizures: an impossibly manic, agitated and shrieking child who reduced me to tears nearly every day.

What also feels liberating to me lately is the absence of partial (focal) seizures these past several weeks. My gut tells me that their recent disappearance is due to the reduction in Keppra we did in mid May, though it could be due to the increase in my homemade THCA late that same month.

Noteworthy, too, is Calvin's recent growth and weight gain, which was enough to put him on the charts; for the second time in his life he has hit the first percentile for weight for his age. He's also in the thralls of puberty, sprouting hair in all the usual places and, on these hot, humid days, is just beginning to smell like teen spirit. Despite all of this, his seizures aren't going crazy. Knock on wood.

When I am feeling grateful about a relatively seizure-sparse month, it reminds me to be grateful for our other fortunes. I think about how lucky we are to be breathing clean air and drinking clean water, and for the privilege of living in a comfortable home in a safe part of a nation which is not war-torn. Also, we are secularly blessed this time of year to have air conditioning in Calvin's room, and to have a thriving yard chock full of beautiful flowering shrubs, a milky way dogwood in full bloom, a burgeoning perennial garden, and to be able to eat dinners in the screen porch that Michael built years ago. I feel most grateful for our friends, for our community and for Michael's job, and the fact that we have decent health insurance because, as unjust as it is, not everyone does ... yet. I thank my lucky stars for Calvin's various caregivers who help me out a handful or more hours each week. I think myself fortunate to live close to the college campus and its students, its athletic fields and their trails, and to our modest downtown. I owe a debt of gratitude to Calvin's medical marijuana dispensary where I get his THCA flower, and to the amazing folks at Palmetto Harmony for making Calvin's CBD oil. I'm grateful for wicked-smart people who have the wherewithal to advocate for women's rights, the rights of oppressed and marginalized Americans, and for the rights of refugees hoping for asylum who are currently being held in horrendous detention centers at our border, many of the children separated from their parents just as was done to enslaved Africans and Native Americans, and to Jews and others in Nazi Germany, causing great physical and psychological harm.

So this enormous gratitude and humility comes with more than a modicum of hope that Calvin's seizures continue to retreat and hope that our nation will choose to move forward—to progress—rather than to carry on its more recent backwards spiral into dirty air and water, fear, ignorance, hurt, hate and misfortune.

never look away

Seeing the young woman forcibly whisked away by strangers, her family standing there motionless, paralyzed by fear, gave me chills. Though they were simply actors in a movie, it stirred something in me.

The film, Never Look Away, begins with the systematic kidnapping, sterilization and extermination of Nazi Germany's "undesirables"—the infirm, the mentally ill, the disabled—children and adults like my son Calvin whose life, as my friend Chris Gabbard describes in an article and in his recent memoir, is valuable beyond reason. In Hitler's regime, children like Calvin were guinea pigs, tortured in medical experiments and murdered in a state-sponsored effort to "cleanse" society of what Nazis deemed as stains on the Aryan race. Then the Nazis went after the Jews, likening them to thieves, rats and demons, instilling fear and hate in order to further their cause, which was to eradicate them.

These images are sickeningly reminiscent of what I see happening today. Refugees from war-torn, poverty-stricken, violent and corrupt nations are being portrayed by this administration as murders, rapists, snakes, infestations. Like animals, they are being crammed by the hundreds into spartan cages where their health and well-being are in jeopardy—little water, little food, no privacy, no basic hygiene. Their children are being forcibly separated from them. These refugees—our fellow human beings—are no different than most of us, except that they are desperate; they are good people, love their children, want a better life. We are not better than they. We can't lay claim to this chunk of earth stolen from its natives. We can't exploit their labor while neglecting their fundamental human needs.

Though I'm no Christian, I find myself asking, what would Jesus do?

Some people ask why we should be caring for refugees when we should be caring for "our own." Why does it have to be a choice? Can't we do both? I don't know how to solve this humanitarian crisis, though I have some ideas. But one thing for sure is that the current treatment of innocents is barbaric.

The other day someone characterized me as "pro-abortion." I corrected her by explaining I am pro-choice, then underscored the difference. I went on to point out, at least in my mind, the hypocrisies of many so-called pro-lifers—people who support capital punishment (state-sanctioned murder), and yet oppose food stamps, universal healthcare, same-sex adoption, basic care for refugees, a living wage and other measures that help vulnerable populations live and thrive and that contribute to a healthy society.

I think back on the film and on the Nazi regime it depicted, one in which its fascist leaders deemed some lives (Caucasian, Reich Church Protestants, healthy, cisgender) more deserving than others (Jewish, Romani, non-Europeans, the infirm, the disabled, Leftists, homosexuals, POWs, Catholics and followers of other religions.) I think about a world in which people, thanks to ignorance and propaganda, fear and hate others. I think about nations like ours whose so-called leader ridicules people like my disabled son, denigrates women, and maligns decent people who are Black and Brown and Gay and Bi and Trans and Jew and atheist and foreigner.

I think again about the atrocious conditions these refugees face in what epitomize modern-day concentration camps. I think about how so many Americans choose to avert their eyes. I consider the Canadian cartoonist who was fired for his depiction of a golfing POTUS playing through drowned refugees, Oscar Martinez Ramirez and his two-year-old daughter, Valeria. I am reminded that I must remain vigilant in protesting such inhumanity. I am reminded that silence equals complicity. I am reminded, when it comes to atrocities, we must never look away.

Photo AFP-JIJI

on jesus, walls, alms and calvin

At four-twenty this morning, only three days after his last one, Calvin suffered a grand mal seizure. It was a typical one for him, self-limiting with full-body convulsions lasting ninety seconds. After it was over I wiped the blood trickling out of the corner of his mouth from having bitten his cheek or tongue. Watching my son seize is never easy, and would no doubt be terrifying, perhaps even repulsive, for most onlookers to witness, or for any parent to see their own child suddenly suffer. I think about other children who have their seizures at school. I wonder if they're made fun of behind their backs by other kids. I wonder if they are stigmatized and shunned. I wonder if they are thought of as alien in some ways. I wonder if they're walled-off from other kids; no doubt their epilepsy and its impact grossly misunderstood and feared.

On seizure days if Calvin rests, I often read the news and pop in and out of social media. The headlines lately seem to be all about the government shutdown over funding for a border wall. Apparently, Trump supporters are crowd-sourcing its funding, having raised in recent days seventeen-million dollars for the project. The notion sickens me, especially in this season of charity celebrating the birth of Jesus. I'm disheartened by the fearmongering and demonization of good and innocent people desperate in their attempts to find and make a better life here. If not descendants of slaves or indigenous peoples, we Americans came from immigrants. We mustn't be fooled by politicians eager to divide us for personal or political gain. Humans are the same the world over; if not for the accident of birth, we might be fleeing wrecked homelands, too. What claim have we to this land anyway?

In the days between Calvin's seizures, I came across two short pieces most worthy of reading this holiday season, one by a Muslim who attended Catholic high school in California, and another by the author of the outstanding book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The first work expresses its author's love and reverence for Jesus. The second explores citizenship and immigration. The two pieces, which make for a lovely pairing, offer compelling arguments for welcoming immigrants and refugees.

Though raised in a Catholic family, I'm not Christian. Nonetheless, I embrace what the Bible says Jesus preached: unconditional love, compassion, acceptance, charity for the needy, the poor, the afflicted. It upsets me to see and hear so-called Christians maligning other decent human beings. It's hard to see folks hell-bent on erecting a wall to divide us from those who need and bleed the same as we. Like us, migrants are laborers. Like us, they love their children. They want to live a good life, free from poverty, exploitation, oppression, violence. And, yes, they pay billions in taxes. Like immigrants are to some Americans, my boy Calvin is misunderstood and derided by the ignorant for his alleged burden on society. But like Jesus, Calvin embodies the best of humanity, teaching us unconditional love, kindness, charity, acceptance, humility. I ponder the infirm in search of treatment, imagine the migrant seeking refuge. I ask myself and others, what would Jesus do? I doubt he'd champion a fund to build a wall between his people.

In this season of getting and giving, I'm keenly aware of and most grateful for the accident of birth in a nation of plenty to parents who were not poor, disenfranchised or oppressed. I'm thankful for our health, our home, our community, for my husband's gainful employment, for generosity, safety, love, brotherhood and sisterhood. Despite Calvin's suffering and burden, I'm grateful for his purity and affection, and for what his being stirs in me to be and do—to give alms to the poor, the hungry, the homeless, and to welcome those who need safe haven, building bridges, not walls, between the world's good people.

in the sparkling stars

When thirty-five degrees feels balmy, it's a sign one might live in the northern hinterlands, where at five o'clock a long-set sun lights up a mackerel horizon.

On our way to the fields, Nellie and I stop by Woody's just to see if he's all right. I ring the bell and through the window see his cat Norton scamper by. Once inside, I give Woody a hug and on its heels my usual grilling: What's for dinner? Any news to report? Are you out of dessert? Does your rib still hurt? A few weeks ago Woody, who turned eighty-six last July, stood up too fast, became dizzy, fell into a desk and fractured a rib. He's doing okay now. I thank the stars for Woody.

After a short visit, Nellie and I continue to the fields where most of the snow has melted. Off leash, she races around nose to the ground, smelling scraps of student-athletes' food now thawed and rotting in the spongy sod. There's a hint of pine in the air, plus wafts of smoke from neighbors' chimneys settling over us like fog. Strings of colored lights have begun popping up on neighbors' trees and shrubs. I stand in the center of the field looking up. Above us, only a smattering of stars peek out between sparse clouds. As they twinkle, I think of Lily and Ronan and Cyndimae and Gordon and Arnd and so many others who have left this world far too young. Now, I see them in the sparkling stars. On our saunter home, I glimpse another octogenarian friend, Nan, through a gap in the fence around her house. Her face is aglow from what I think is a laptop, and I wonder if she feels lonely without her husband Bob there to take care of; he now lives in a nursing home. I miss greeting him in his driveway on nights like this, smelling his sweet pipe smoke as I approached. He'd always say, "Nan doesn't let me smoke inside anymore," then he'd chuckle as he took a puff.

Almost home, a crescent moon appears tangled in the canopy of a scraggly oak. I'm thankful the moon isn't full, since those seem to trigger seizures in my son. The thought of seizures brings to mind Jakelin Caal Maqin, the seven-year-old Guatemalan refugee who recently died in US custody. She had suffered seizures before she passed, having made the arduous journey with her father to our so-called Promised Land. I wonder if these refugees who walk at night navigate by stars. I wonder what led to her demise. I read of border patrol agents sabotaging humanitarian water stashes left in the desert to aid desperate, parched refugees. What kind of people do such things to fellow human beings? Cowards. Monsters. Fools.

I call Michael from my new dumb phone to tell him that I love him. I hear Calvin squealing in his arms. It's almost bedtime for our boy. Soon, we'll change his diaper and put him in flannel pajama pants and two clean long-sleeve shirts. We'll give him Keppra, cannabis oil and water. We'll brush his teeth, lift him into bed, tuck him in under a goose down cover and thick fleece throw. We'll stroke his hair and kiss him. He'll be warm and safe, dry and hydrated. No hiding under desert sagebrush in the wilds. No risk of thirst and hunger. No sleeping on concrete floors in cages. No sitting in filth with scores of others. No abuse, neglect or trickery from foreign strangers speaking English.

Where has our compassion as a nation gone? Our embrace of others? No doubt to dirty dogs.

As I step into the house, warm light and air pour over me. Once more I glimpse the sky before I close the door. I see Jakelin there among the sparkling stars.