Today is Tuesday, June 19, Juneteenth, also known as Freedom Day.
I found Just Mercy: The Story of Justice and Redemption, by Bryan Stevenson, on another blog that features books, and I agree with most of what was said. I got the book on inter-library loan and finished it in just a few days.
While the book gets compared to To Kill a Mockingbird, I would note that while that book is a work of fiction, the stories in Just Mercy are about real people whose lives were destroyed by a broken justice system – some of the prisoners mentioned never receive justice.
It was eye-opening to me to re-discover the history of racism in the South (including convict leasing) that I didn’t know the depth of. It sent me back to the Chaplain’s post on race. While we had talked here and there about different issues, that post was the first time I had the open window to a full perspective on his take on current events and race in America.
Getting a better understanding of the continuing race issues in our country was tough. I had to take a break from reading a couple of times. The book focuses on the Deep South, but laces in stories from all over the United States, a grim reminder that injustice for Blacks and the poor are not limited to one area of the U.S.
I felt indignant as I read. I hated the thought that one of my kids could be put in the position that the prisoners in the book found themselves in. I felt for the mothers and grandmothers who in desperation approached the author, a lawyer, for help for their children and grandchildren. I felt for the young people who had been wronged.
My first thought was, what can I do? I still don’t have a good answer for that. It’s so frustrating to know where to begin to bring change when the status quo is so deeply institutionalized. Yet the book made it very clear that even when the way forward seems obvious, our legal system is so convoluted that years can pass before meaningful change is made. By then, it can be too late for those who need it most.
We are paying so much, as a nation – in emotional currency and in actual dollars, to support a system that is destroying us. It destroys trust in the establishment; it destroys lives.
It was good to read about the work that is being done for justice, but it was difficult to know the cost which is being paid by those who are still waiting for reckoning.
For years, I got my hair cut at Walmart. I was too cheap to pay anyone more than $20 (with tax and tip) for a cut. Between small kids and my inability to justify self-care to myself, I didn’t get my hair trimmed often enough. When I did make the trip, it was typically an act of desperation.
When you don’t pay for a good haircut, you don’t get a good haircut. I would walk away with something that was only a shadow of what I really wanted – I went hoping for something low maintenance, fun, a little edgy. And finally, I got sick of going to the hairdresser only to come home feeling frustrated by the results.
So I started using our buzzer to cut my own hair.
A year ago today, we welcomed a silly, sweet boy with a chill disposition into our family.
When I started looking at photos, I was overwhelmed by the love we all feel for our rainbow baby. 
During this difficult year, Seven has been a ray of sunshine in the dark night. 
He isn’t interested in following anyone else’s program, but he is content to make his own way without creating a lot of waves. 
As the past few weeks have gone by and he’s sprouted teeth and started to stand on his own, we’ve gotten a glimpse of what’s to come – when we have to say goodbye to our baby and hello to a little toddler. 
I know that no matter how big he gets, he will still be everyone’s Little Brother and my baby. 
He’s got so many people to watch over him, defend him, and tell him what to do. 
Hopefully that won’t put a cramp in his style.
Something tells me it won’t.
This is me at the end of the day, a hot mess, hanging on for dear life. Or, alternately, a sloth at the Bronx Zoo. Your choice.
For years now, I have wanted to stop using screens in the evening, at least some of the time. I’ve always been a little jealous of married friends who casually say, “Oh, we don’t really watch TV together.”
But it is our default, after we get the kids to bed. We flop on the sofa in the living room, after both of us have worked hard all day. Then, we turn on the TV and watch something together. We’ve struggled to choose something to watch, even more so lately. A lot of the stuff the Chaplain would normally pick is just too cerebral for me to try to follow after I’m brain dead (NOVA, for instance? Fascinating, but I’m just too burnt to follow it.) The things I would choose are too girly (PBS’s new version of Little Women, for instance. Ah-mazing. But probably not of interest to the Chaplain).
So we were stuck in this rut where we would watch something we both were kind of ok with, but neither of us loved it. And I would trudge up to bed afterward feeling like I had wasted an hour (or two).
Last night, three of our kids had dress rehearsals for their upcoming dance recital. If you told me as a young person or even as a young mom that I would be a Dance Mom one day, I likely would have scoffed at you. Yet watching my kids perform last night in their costumes gave me an unaccountable sense of pride. There were many wins yesterday afternoon. Everyone who needed hair, makeup, and tights without holes got them. We managed, against all odds, to make it to the studio on time, everyone in their appropriate costumes.
The Chaplain met us there, and we tag-teamed the little kids. I took scads of pictures that turned out terrible, as I knew they would, due to the dark purple walls of the studio and the unforgiving fluorescent lights. I had used both my camera and my phone so hard that by the end of the practice performances, the batteries for both were limping along and close to death. I thought we were finished, and the Chaplain and I started loading the Littles into the car.
